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FREDERICK DOUGLASS

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THE NEGRO
IN OUR HISTORY

CARTEE G. WOODSON, Ph.D.

Editor of The Journal of Negro History, author of The Education

of the Negro Prior to 1861, A Century of Negro Migration,

and of The History of the Negro Church

THE ASSOCIATED PUBLISHERS, INC.
WASHINGTON, D. C.

MY BROTHER
ROBERT HENRY WOODSON

PREFACE

THIS book was written five years ago and would have
been published at that time, had not the high cost of print
ing during the World War rendered its manufacture too
expensive. A few pages have been added to bring the work
nearer to the present date, but the leading facts as set forth
herein appear as they were originally written.

The purpose in writing this book was to present to the
average reader in succinct form the history of the United
States as it has been influenced by the presence of the Negro
in this country. The aim here is to supply also the need of
schools long since desiring, such a work in handy form with
adequate references for those stimulated to more advanced
study.

In this condensed form certain situations and questions
could not be adequately discussed, and in endeavoring thus
to tell the story the author may have left unsaid what
others consider more important. Practically all phases of
Negro life and history have been treated in their various
ramifications, however, to demonstrate how the Negro has
been influenced by contact with the Caucasian and to em
phasize what the former has contributed to civilization.

The author is indebted to Mr. David A. Lane, Jr., who
kindly assisted him in reading the entire proof.

CARTER G. WOODSON.

Washington, D. C.
April, 1922.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. THE NEGRO IN AFRICA 1

II. THE NEGRO ENSLAVED 15

III. SLAVERY IN ITS MILD FORM ..... 34

x^iV. THE NEGRO AND THE RIGHTS OF MAN . . 51

V. REACTION 71

VI. A DECLINING ANTISLAVERY MOVEMENT . . 86

. ECONOMIC SLAVERY 99

. THE FREE NEGRO 124

IX. BLAZING THE WAY 138

X. COLONIZATION 153

XI. ABOLITION 169

XII. FURTHER PROTEST 182

XIII. SLAVERY AND THE CONSTITUTION .... 195

XIV. THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT .... 208
XV. THE NEGRO IN THE CIVIL WAR .... 221

XVI. THE RECONSTRUCTION 239

XVII. FINDING A WAY OF ESCAPE 260

XVIII. ACHIEVEMENTS IN FREEDOM 280

XIX. THE NEGRO IN THE WORLD WAR .... 305

XX. THE NEGRO AND SOCIAL JUSTICE .... 329

APPENDIX 243

INDEX . . . 373

LIST OF ILLUSTEATIONS

FREDERICK DOUGLASS Frontispiece

PAGE

AN AFRICAN YOUTH .

WAGING WAR TO SUPPLY THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE

SLAVERY AMONG THE ANCIENTS . . 7

AN AFRICAN KING AND COUNCIL 9

GUSTAVUS VASA 13

AN AFRICAN SLAVE MARKET 17

INSPECTING A NEGRO CAPTIVE .... 20
BRANDING A NEGRO WOMAN SLAVE .

THE FAITHFUL SLAVE ... 26

THE DASH FOR LIBERTY ... 35

AN ADVERTISEMENT OF A RUNAWAY SLAVE 37

GRANVILLE SHARP . . 38

Attorney for the Slave in the Somerset Case.

THE PUNISHMENT OF A RUNAWAY SLAVE 45

ENTERTAINMENT 48

THE DEATH OF CRISPUS ATTUCKS IN THE BOSTON MASSACRE . 59

PETER SALEM AT BUNKER HILL 61

LEMUEL HAYNES 63

A Negro Soldier in the American Revolution and later a

distinguished Congregational preacher to white people in

New England.
FACSIMILE OF AN HONORABLE DISCHARGE OF A NEGRO SOLDIER

FROM WASHINGTON S ARMY &lt;&gt;4

PHYLLIS WHEATLEY 6- s

BENJAMIN BANNEKER S ALMANAC 69

TOUSSAINT L OUVERTURE ... 72

The Liberator of Haiti.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN . 74

An Advocate of Freedom.

xii Illustrations

PAGE

RICHARD ALLEN 78

The Founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Ax EARLY COTTON GIN 71)

ANOTHER SORT OF SLAVERY 83

THOMAS JEFFERSON 90

An Antislavery Reformer.

THE NEGRO CALLS A HALT !&gt;2

NAT TURNER !&gt;4

THE MOTHER AND CHILD &gt;&lt;&gt;

JOSIAH HEN SON 101

Prototype of Uncle Totn s Cabin.

A SLAVE AUCTION 103

A PLANTATION 106

RILLIEUX S EVAPORATING PAN .... 110

THE PURSUIT OF A SLAVE

HARRIETT TUBMAN . .

NEW YORK AFRICAN FREE SCHOOL Xo. 2 135

Built a century ago.
FREEDOM S JOURNAL . . . 1 ; &gt;~

A Negro Newspaper edited a century ago.
EMLEN INSTITUTE

A Secondary School in Mercer County, Ohio, admitting

Negroes in 1842.
ELLEN CRAFT .

A Fugitive disguised as her Master.
WILLIAM STILL . .

An Agent of the Underground Railroad,
MYRTILLA MINER .

A missionary Teacher of Negroes.
DR. J. McCuNE SMITH
FREE NEGROES IN THE CRISIS
WILLIAM WELLS BROWN
ALEXANDER CRUMMELL
HENRY HIGHLAND GARNETT
J. W. C. PEXNINGTON
SAMUEL R. WARD .
HARRIETT BEECHER STOWE
PAUL CUFFE

The first actual Colonizer.

Illustrations xiii

PAGE

LOTT CABY 158

JOHN B. RUSSWUBM 160

ROBERT PURVIS . . 162

WILLIAM WILBEBFOBCE 165

MARTIN R. DELANEY 167

An Author, Physician, and Leader before the Civil War.

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON 170

LEWIS TAPPAN 171

WENDELL PHILLIPS 172

ANTISLAVEBY APOSTLES 173

PBUDENCE CBANDALL 175

A Martyr in the uplift of the Negro.

LUNSFOBD LANE 176

A Native of North Carolina, who lectured in the North

against slavery.

LUCBETIA MOTT 177

CHABLES LENOX REMOND 178

SOJOUBNEB TBUTH 17!)

FBEDEEICK DOUGLASS 180

SOUTHERN ABOLITIONISTS 183

GERBIT SMITH 185

WHITE MABTYBS IN THE CAUSE or ABOLITION ... 180

SENATOB JOHN P. HALE 103

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 106

The Champion of Free Speech.

JOHN C. CALHOUX 100

JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS 200

FBIENDS OF THE FUGITIVES . . 201

WILLIAM H. SEWABD 202

PBOMOTEBS OF THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD 204

JOSEPH CINQUE .... 200

CHARLES SUMNEB 210

HENBY WABD BEECHEB 214

A Champion of Freedom.

BENJAMIN F. WADE 210

The Defier of the Secessionists.

JOHN BBOWN 220

ABRAHAM LINCOLN . 222

xiv Illustrations

PAGE

XEGROES ix THE SERVICE OF THE CONFEDERATES .... 224

U. S. GRANT 225

FACSIMILE OF THE ORIGINAL DRAFT OF THE EMANCIPATION

PROCLAMATION . . .. 231

ROBERT COULD SHAM 233

Leading the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment.

COL. T. YV. HIGGINSON 235

A Commander of Negro Troops.

TEACHING THE FREEDMEN 241

SOME FACTORS IN THE RECONSTRUCTION 243

GENERAL 0. 0. HOWARD 246

JOHN M. LANGSTON 247

JOHN R. LYNCH 248

A Member of Congress.

PI. R. REVELS 249

United States Senator from Mississippi.

SOME NEGRO CONGRESSMEN 250

B. K. BRUCE 251

United States Senator from Mississippi.

JOSEPH H. RAINEY 252

A Member of Congress.

JAMES T. RAPIER 253

A Member of Congress.

P. B. S. PIXCHBACK 254

Acting Governor of Louisiana.

THE NEW FREEDOM 257

The first mixed jury in the District of Columbia.

R. T. GREENER 264

JOSEPH C. PRICE 266

KELLY MILLER 267

BISHOP IT. M. TURNER 260

A fearless Spokesman for his People.

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON 27f&gt;

\V. ]-]. B. DuBois . . 276

OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD 277

MOORFIELD STOREY, A FRIEND OF THE OPPRESSED 27S

President of the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People.

Illustrations xv

PAGE

A NEGRO COUNTRY SEAT . 282

The Home of Scott Bond.

THE RESIDENCE OF MADAME C. J. WALKER .... 283

JULIUS ROSEXWALD

ANDREW CARNEGIE

JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER AND HIS Sox . . 290

ROBERT RUSSA MOTOX ... 291

MATZELIGER S LASTING MACHINE . . . 295

GRANVILLE T. WOODS . . 297

H. 0. TANNER S Christ and Nicodamts . . 300

PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR

A RESULT OF THE MIGRATION . . .

A Negro Teacher with Pupils of both Races.

COLONEL CHARLES YOUNG . . 317

THE NEW YORK FIFTEENTH IN THE WORLD WAR

MAJOR JOEL E. SPINGARN . . 324

An enemy of prejudice in the Army.

FIRST SEPARATE BATTALION OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 32(

Receiving the Croix de Guerre in France.

JAMES WELDON JOHNSON . .

Secretary of the National Association for the Advance
ment of Colored People.

Miss MARY WHITE OVIXGTON .

Chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Asso
ciation for the Advancement of Colored People.

DR. FRANCIS J. GRIMKE .

A Preacher of the New Democracy.
ARCHIBALD H. GRIMKE .

"A Defender of his People."

MAPS

THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE NEGRO POPULATION IN 1860 . . . 218
PERCENTAGE NEGRO IN THE POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES

BY COUNTIES, 1910 :)8-300

THE NEGRO IN OUR HISTORY

CHAPTER I

THE NEGRO IN AFRICA

THE ease with which the Negro thrives in centers of
modern civilization, in contradistinction to the destructive
effect of this influence on the belated peoples like the
Indians, has evoked admiration and comment. In the
beginning of the treatment of the role played The cu i tu re
by the Negro in our history, then, it may be of Negroes,
well briefly to examine the situation in Africa with a view
to determining exactly what accounts for the facility with
which the culture of the Negroes brought to Europe and
America has. so easily fused with the culture generally
known as that of the white man. Has the culture of the
Negro anything in common with that of the western na
tions, or is the Negro merely imitative, as is often asserted
by many writers ? Since most historians in this field know
practically nothing about the Negroes in Africa prior to
their enslavement, it will be profitable to give their situa
tion in that land at least a cursory examination. 1

In considering the forces effective in making the civiliza
tion of Africa it is well to note that although it is the second
continent in size, it has such few inlets that it has the

i For more extensive treatment see W. Z. Ripley s Races of Europe,
J. Deniker s Races of Men, J. Finot s Race Prejudice, F. Ratzel s The
History of Mankind, Franz Boas s The Mind of Primitive Man,
Spiller s Inter-Racial Problems, C. Bucher s Industrial Revolution,
Casely Hayford s Ethiopia Unbound and his Native Institutions,
James Bryce s Impressions of South Africa, Leo Frobenius s The
Voice of Africa, and G. Sergi s The Mediterranean Race.

. !* it.

2 1-he Negro In Our History

shortest coast-line of all. Some historians will therefore
inform us that owing to this lack of good harbors Africa

Physiographic ^ as no ^ ^ ia( ^ through commerce, sufficient con-
features of tact with the outer world to keep its civiliza-
Africa.

j.j on a b reas t w jth that of other continents.
Although Africa has valuable land, it suffers from the han
dicap of being in the main
a high elevated table
land with rapids and falls
rendering difficult the ap
proach from the outer
world ; and the four great
rivers, the Zambezi, the
Niger, the Congo, and the
Nile, are not sufficient to
furnish facilities for
transportation even in the
interior. Africa lies in
that part of the tropical
world where, because of
its peculiar location with
reference to the directions
of the winds, the climate
is unusually warm and
dry except in the region
drained by the Congo,
where the abundant rainfall produces conditions very much
like those in other parts of the torrid zone.

Because of these peculiar geographic conditions there
exist various civilizations determined largely by the areas
in which they have developed. For general purposes
Africa may be divided into three zones. Stretching from
African a little above the equator to the south of that

civilizations, circle is the region of the heaviest rainfall
and consequently the most abundant vegetation. There

AN AFRICAN YOUTH

The Negro In Africa

may be found swelling streams flowing through forests
teeming with animals, natural crops, and an abundance of
fruits serving as food for men, who on that account have
no struggle for life. Above and below this zone are two
others of less rainfall and consequently less vegetation.
There it is necessary for man to cultivate the fields in
order to make a living. Still farther beyond the limits of

WAGING WAR TO SUPPLY THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE

the last named zones are areas of much less and, in the
North, of practically no vegetation on account of the lack
of rain. In those sections man must earn a living by pas
turing cattle and the like. 2

It is evident, therefore, that since environment is the
great factor in the making of a people, various civiliza
tions have sprung up in these respective zones. Those who

2 This has been discussed by Jerome Dowd in The Journal of Negro
History, Vol. II, pp. 1-16.

4 The Negro In Our History

have lived under the equator where there is no struggle for
life have not made much advancement. In that section it
Environment has not been possible for necessity to become
as a factor. ^ Q mother of invention. Those living in the
areas requiring cultivation of the soil have made most prog
ress. It has been necessary for them to bring under their
control certain forces of nature to increase the food sup
ply which nature in that zone niggardly yields. The dwell
ers in the arid regions are handicapped by being restricted
to merely one industry from which returns are obtained
with increasing difficulty. While under such circumstances
the achievements of the people may in one or two respects
reach a high stage, they must remain a backward stock for
lack of proper environment and opportunity.

This situation throws much light on slavery and its con
comitants in Africa. As there is- not very much of an
effort to earn a living in the region under the equator,
slavery in that section seldom extends beyond that of
women who are usually attached to men as wives. A man
Slavery in in need of labor purchases additional wives
Africa. to supply that need, and a wife is usually

worth so many cows. As very few slaves are required and
there is often a scarcity of meats, cannibalism is practiced,
as* the taste of human flesh does not differ materially from
that of other animals. In the case of wars, therefore, when
captives are taken they can be easily disposed of by sale,
for the reason that they are not needed in the economy of
the country.

In the zone farther north there is an urgent need for
the labor of slaves, A living is obtained there with
more difficulty than in the equatorial zone, and the effort
on the part of one to shift arduous labor to the shoulders
of another results in the enslavement of the weak to do the
work of the strong. In the arid zone a slave class is not
considered indispensable, since it cannot easily maintain

The Negro In Africa 5

itself there and at the same time support superiors. As all
of the population must work, free rather than slave labor
is the rule.

The people of Africa inhabiting these various zones are
commonly known as the black race, but because of climatic
differences men in these parts have become widely dif
ferent from each other. The records of archeologists indi
cate that the primitive African was not neces- African
sarily black, but of an Asiatic type of Ne- peoples,
groid features. 3 There are certain records which lead
to the conclusion that at one time the peoples of Africa were
largely of the mulatto type, and today the natives of
Africa are not generally black but exhibit in their racial
characteristics all of the divergencies found among the
people of color in the United States. There are in the main
such types as the small primitive stock, the larger forest
Negro in the center and on the west coast, and the tall
blacks in the Sudan.

There seems to have been a movement of peoples and of
civilizations from Asia into Egypt and from Egypt up the
Nile into the interior of Africa, and again from Egypt west
ward to the Atlantic near the Gulf of Guinea. The move .
There was, too, a backward movement from merits of
the West to the East causing a conflict, a
fusion, and a destruction of cultures. Out of this chaos
developed the Bantu, calling themselves the people, a war
like nation which imposed its sway and language on all
of Southern Africa extending from the Gulf of Guinea.

In the north the controlling forces centered for some

s For a discussion of African races see The Atlanta University
Publications, No. 20; Select Discussions of Race Problem. More de
tailed information may be obtained from G. Spiller s Papers on
Inter-Racial Problems; The American Journal of Anatomy, Vol.
IX, pp. 156-159; Science N. S., Vol. XXXI, pp. 171-186; Thomas s
Source Book for Social Origins, pp. 156-169; The Journal of Race De
velopment, Vol. I, No. 4, pp. 482-500; and Boas s The Mind of the
Primitive Man, pp. 251-278.

6 The Negro In Our History

centuries in Egypt, which, although commonly regarded as
a country of Asiatic civilization, was, like other parts of
Egypt and Africa, molded in this crucible of cultures,
the North. j^ was ^} ie j an( j O f m i xec i breeds or persons

comparable to Negroes passing in this country as people
of color. When these people were in ascendance, the great
nations of the Mediterranean world, like the Greeks, the
Italians, and Carthaginians, came into contact with them
and were thereby influenced to the extent that investiga
tors contend that the civilizations of southern Europe
had African rather than European origin. 4 These civili
zations, however, did not endure.

It will no doubt be interesting, therefore, to trace briefly
the rise and fall of some of these empires. 5 The highest
of these civilizations centered in the Nile region, with
Ethiopia around the head waters of that river and Egypt
The rise of along the lower. The people of this country
empires. were mixed breeds, as evidenced by their mon

uments exhibiting Negro and mulatto faces. At least one-
third of the Egyptians were distinctly black. History seems
to indicate that the country was first settled by a Negro
tribe that mingled later with the Mediterranean people
coming from the North. Through this process a large
number of Negroes went into Greece and even into Italy,
where they influenced civilization not as slaves but as per
sons rising to positions of usefulness. As such, Egypt* once
led the world in culture. " Egypt," says Chamberlain,
" acted as a channel by which the genius of Negroland
was drafted off into the service of Mediterranean and
Asiatic culture.

Ethiopia and Egypt were at first united, but in the
course of time separated as two distinct empires. There

4 The Journal of Negro History, Vol. II, p. 331.

5 The rise of those empires is treated in Felix DuBois s Timbuctoo
the Mysterious, and in F. L. S. Lugard s Tropical Dependency.

The Negro In Africa 7

were various wars between the Egyptians and the Ethio
pians when the former was trying to wrest the country from
the invaders of the north. At no time, how- Ethiopia and
ever, did the Negroes fail to figure conspicu- E &yp*
ously in the civilization of Egypt, as is evidenced by the fact

SLAVERY AMONG THE AACIE.NTS

that full-blooded Negroes like Ha Nehesi and Nefertari sat
on the Egyptian throne, and that many other of its rulers
were of decidedly Negroid features. The affairs of the
Ethiopian and Egyptian empires did not seem to become

8 The Negro In Our History

separate until during the middle empire of Egypt, when
Nepata and Meroe became centers of a largely native
civilization. The new empire, however, continued its wars
against the Ethiopians and gradually incorporated the
country, until Ethiopia finally became subject to that land.
In the course of time, however, Ethiopia asserted itself,
easily overran Egypt, and appointed a son of the king of
Ethiopia to rule the land of the Pharaohs.

The Negro was then at his best as a constituent factor
in the affairs of the Egypto-Ethiopian empire. When,
however, the country was conquered by the Assyrians and
then by the Persians, Egypt became subject to the in-
The Negro vaders from Asia, whereas Ethiopia continued
in the empire. fts wav&lt; Ethiopia was again invaded by a
Greek influence from the East and the influences of the
tribes from the Sudan on the West, but the Ethiopian
language and government tended to endure. Ethiopians
persistently gave trouble to the Romans, who undertook
to subdue them and failed thoroughly to do so because
of their interior position. This country lay asleep during
the Middle Ages. In later years it became known as Nubia,
and finally as Abyssinia, after having experienced various
conquests and subjugations resulting in changes which
have not yet succeeded in blotting out altogether its ancient
civilization.

With the exception of what the historian Herodotus has
left in fragmentary form, not much is known about the
early nations established on the Niger or the Sudan. They
Sudan and are connected in history with Ethiopia and
the Niger. Egypt as a center of culture distinctly Afri
can, as evidenced by the figures of Sherbro and the mega
liths of Gambia. The first actual history dates from the ap
proach of the Mohammedans about the year 1000. The
Mohammedans came largely as traders and gave much
stimulus to the rise of commerce among these people, not

The Negro In Africa

utterly changing the civilization but decidedly influencing
the life and history of the people. Drawing no color
line, these Arabs blended readily with the Negroes and gave
rise to the prominence of certain Arabised blacks repre
sented by Antar, who in Arabia became the national hero
and one of the great poets of Islam. Carrying their civiliza
tion later into Spain, the Africans attained distinction there
also, for a Negro poet resided at Seville and in 1757 a
Negro founded a town in lower Morocco.

AN AFRICAN KING AND COUNCIL

In the eleventh century the Moslems found in the west
the far advanced kingdom of Ghana, which they conquered
after much resistance of the natives, who had an army of two
hundred thousand men and sufficient wealth The Kingdom
to support it. When this kingdom declined of G-hana.
in the thirteenth century, Melle superseded it and added
greatly to its wealth by the expansion of its commerce
through welcoming the Mohammedan traders. They found

10 The Negro In Our History

evidence of advanced civilizations even in the Congo, and
learned that the Zulu chiefs, whose armies swept south
eastern Africa, exhibited unusual power of military
organization.

Among the cities where this exceptional culture was dis
covered was that of Jenne, from which the modern name
Guinea has been obtained. This city experienced, as usual,
The State migrations and movements frequent in other
of Jenne. parts of Africa, destroying many of the evi
dences of civilization. But according to Frobenius, the
traveler observed an advanced culture in their terra-cotta
industry, in their achievements in clay and stone and iron,
in their glass beads, earthen and glassware, and in the dex
terity of their weaving. This civilization shows the city
group like that around Timbuctu and Hausa. These cities
had a government largely like that of an autonomy of
Timbuctu. modern times what we would call the social
and industrial state, but of an essentially democratic
order. These achievements so impressed the world
that in keeping with other claims based on prejudice,
white men have undertaken to accredit whites with this
culture.

There developed also the states commonly known as the
Ashanti and Dahomey, 6 which, because of their orgies of
war and sacrifice of human beings exhibited a striking
contrast to the city democracy of elevated religious ideas,
Ashanti and organized industry, and noble art." So far
Dahomey. ^ known, however, the white race has not yet
made a strenuous effort to prove that this civilization was
Caucasian, doubtless for the reason that these very back
ward conditions rendered the country so weak that it
finally developed into a region of internecine wars which

a The cruelty practiced in Dahomey is evident from a speech of the
king of that country, found in The Journal of Negro History, Vol.
I, p. 65.

The Negro In Africa 11

paved the way for the lucrative slave trade carried on by
the Christian nations.

In the regions of the great lakes flourished other centers
of civilization. There, evidences of culture and the mining
of silver and gold and trade in precious stones appeared.
These Africans were the first to smelt iron and to use it
as the great leverage of civilization by which the world has
been enabled to accomplish its wonders in modern times.
They had useful iron implements, erected well-constructed
buildings and fortifications, made beautiful pottery, and
worked extensively in the precious metals. As indicated
by their utensils and implements, they had made much
more advancement in religion than some of the other tribes,
inasmuch as they had temples of significance comparing
favorably with those of the Greeks and Romans. The gov
ernment established was based on slavery and the people
devoted themselves to agriculture and other industries.

There emerged, too, the large kingdom of Songhay, cov
ering the period from the year 700 to 1335, with three well-
connected dynasties distinguished by great warriors who
extended the territory of the empire, and The Kingdom
statesmen who distinguished themselves in of Songhay.
administering its affairs. After resisting the Mohammedans
for some time, the sixteenth king was converted to their
faith about the year 1000. Among the greatest of these
rulers was Soni Ali, noted for his military exploits and his
success as a statesman. The country again saw something
like a return to a golden age under another distinguished
ruler called Mohammed Askia, who brought the country into
contact with Egypt and the outer world, and finally
marched against neighboring empires, which he conquered
and ruled with a provincial system very much like that of
Rome. He established schools of learning and promoted
the study of law, literature, the natural sciences, and
medicine.

12 The Negro In Our History

In the end, however, this empire fell into the hands of
undesirable rulers, and according to the pious annalist,
"All was changed in a moment. Danger took the place of
serenity, destitution of abundance ; trouble, calamities, and
violence succeeded to tranquillity. Everywhere the popu
lations began to destroy each other. In all places and in
every direction rapine became the law, war spared neither
life, nor property, nor the position of the people. Dis
order was general, and it spread everywhere till it reached
at last the highest degree of intensity. " " Things continued
thus," adds the historian, "until towards the moment in
which the Songhay dynasty approached its end, and its
empire ceased to exist. At this moment faith was ex
changed for infidelity ; there was nothing forbidden by God
which was not openly done. Men drank wine, they gave
themselves up to vice. . . . Because of these abominations,
the Almighty in his vengeance drew down upon the Songhay
the victorious army of the Moors, whom he brought through
terrible sufferings from a distant country. Then the roots
of this people were separated from the trunk, and the
chastisement they underwent was exemplary. 7

It is clear that African culture prior to the exploitation
of the new world was in many respects like the culture of
Europe. The natives far removed from the equator had
African reached the stage of easily earning a sub

culture, sistence by using iron implements, a thing

which European nations were late in learning. In art and
architecture they had advanced far beyond the primitive
stage, in literature their achievements attained the rank
of the world s best classics in the Tarik e Soudan, and in
religion and morals most of them kept abreast with the
times. In government the Africans united the best in
democracy and monarchy. Theirs was a slave society, but

7 F. L. S. Lngard, A Tropical Dcpcndcnci/, pp. 28.3-284 : The Journal
of Negro History, Vol. TT, p. 140.

The Negro In Africa 13

there was a healthy sentiment against the exploitation of

men. With the thinking class birth did not differ from

birth; "as the freeman was born so was the slave." "In

the beginning," said a pious

African, "our Lord created all;

with Him there is neither slave

nor freeman, but every one is

free." "To love a king," the

African thought, "is not bad, but

a king who loves you is better."

And it sounds a little socialistic

to hear the proverbs, "If thou

art poor do not make the rich man

thv friend," "If thou goest to a GUSTAVUS VASA, a talented

,. , L African

foreign country, do not alight at

a rich man s house," or "It is better to be poor and live
long than rich and die young."

The African mind exhibited during these years evidences
of a philosophy not to be despised. The native philosopher
found three friends in "courage, sense and insight." The
African realized that "the lack of knowledge African
is darker than night," that "an ignorant man proverbs,
is a slave," and that "whoever works without knowledge
works uselessly. " " Not to know, he believed, is bad ; not
to wish to know is worse. Adhering to a high standard of
morals, the African taught the youth that "there is no
medicine for hate" and that "he who bears malice is a
heathen; he who injures another brings injury to him
self." To emphasize opportunity the moralist reminded
his fellows that "the dawn does not come twice to wake
a man." To teach politeness he asserted that "bowing
to a dwarf will not prevent your standing erect again."
In emphasizing the truth, he asserted that "lies, however
numerous, will be caught by truth when it rises, and the
voice of truth is easily known." The selfish man was

14 The Negro In Our History

warned that "if you love yourself, others will hate you;
if you humble yourself, others will love you." Among the
Africans there was a feeling that "a man with wisdom is
better off than a stupid man with any amount of charm
and superstition. Such sentient expressions as "A
butterfly that brushes against thorns will tear his wings,"
and * He who cannot move an ant and yet tries to move an
elephant shall find his folly," have the ring of the planta
tion philosophy developed in the United States. The
proverbs "When the fox dies, fowls do not mourn," and
* He who goes with a wolf will learn to howl, 8 exhibit more
than ordinary mental development.

8 A larger number of these proverbs appear in The Journal of Negro
History, Vol. I, pp. 42-48; but a detailed study in this field would
require R. F. Burton s Wit and Wisdom from West Africa, S. W.
Koells s African Native Literature, A. B. Ellis s The Yoruba Speaking
Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa, and H. Chatelian s Folk
Lore of Angola.

CHAPTER II

THE NEGRO ENSLAVED

THAT the Negro should be enslaved was in the halcyon
days of the institution no exception to the rule. Slavery
was once the normal condition of the majority of the
inhabitants of the world. In many countries Ancient
slaves outnumbered freemen three to one. slavery.
Greece and Rome, the most civilized of the ancient nations
in which the so-called democracy of that day had its best
opportunity, were not exceptions to this rule. Primitive
slavery, however, differed very much from the slavery of
which our forefathers remind us. Among the ancients,
slavery resulted from the effort to make a safe disposition
of captives in war by using them as laborers at home while
citizens and subjects in good physical condition went
abroad to defend the honor of the nation.

It happened that centuries ago, when African civilization
was not unlike that of the emerging modern Europe, Africa
was disturbed from without and within by migrations like
the movement which overthrew the Roman The Fifteenth
empire and destroyed its civilization. Being Century,
too weak to resist invaders while dealing with enemies at
home, Africa yielded to the attacks of restless nations.
When the Bantu hordes had destroyed the peace of the
African empires, there came the Mohammedans in quest
of slaves to supply their harems and armies, and finally the
slave traders from the United States, giving cause for local

16 The Negro In Our History

wars to secure a labor supply for the exploitation of the
New World. 1

During the seventh and eighth centuries, the Moham
medan religion well established itself in Western Asia and
began to take over Northern Africa. At first Africans
Mohammedan already enslaved were bought from their
slavery. masters and used in war, as was the custom

throughout Europe and Asia. When, however, the exigen
cies of those circumstances demanded a larger number of
slaves than could thereby be supplied, they were seized
by well planned methods involving the enslavement and
depopulation of large districts of Africa. This led to the
overthrow of African nations long since established as
centers of culture and the rise of other States committed
to the policy of profiting by the lucrative slave trade.
This trade finally extended to the very interior of the
continent and became the most cruel traffic in human flesh
theretofore known to the world. It is only of late that it
can be said that this Mohammedan slave trade has been
decidedly checked or brought to an end. It remained as a
disgrace to certain Eastern nations during the latter part
of the nineteenth century and even into the twentieth.
Slavery among the Mohammedans, however, was not al
together a hopeless condition. If the slave professed faith
in the tenets of Mohammed, he became a communicant in
that connection, enjoying equality with the richest and the
best, accepted on the principle of the brotherhood of man.

Following upon the Mohammedan quest of slaves came
the discovery of America, which, being in itself a conspicu-

i The conditions in Africa facilitating the increase in the slave
trade arc treated in T. K. Ingram s History of Slavery and Serfdom,
John R. Spears s The American Slave Trade, W. E. B. DuBois s Sup
pression of the African Slave Trade, B. Mayer s Captain Canot
or Twenty Years of an African Slaver, R. Drake s The Revelations of
a Slave Smuggler, Bryan Edward s West Indies, and T. Clarkson s
History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade, 2 Volumes.

The Negro Enslaved

ous event in the Keiiaissance, meant nothing less than the
opening of a new field of exploitation in a hitherto unknown
world. In carrying out the policy of com- The slave
mercial expansion so eagerly championed some trade,
years later by the leading nations of Europe, the planter
class did not proceed far before they fell back on compulsory
labor. At first they impressed the Indians into their ser
vice, but because of their intractability these proved in most
cases to be unprofitable bondmen.

AN AFRICAN SLAVE MARKET

Certain settlers established mainly in Pennsylvania, Mary
land and Virginia made the experiment with indentured
white servants. Some of these were, like the Pennsylvania
Redemptioners, respectable persons bound to Indentured
service for a number of years to pay their servants,
expense from Europe to the New World. To Virginia and
Maryland, however, were transported a large number of
convicts more or less desirable than the ruined and im
prisoned debtors whose release was effected by Oglethorpe

18 The Negro In Our History

that they might try life anew in Georgia. This traffic, like
the slave trade, was objectionable to some colonies, and they
enacted measures to restrict it ; but these were vetoed by the
King of England as being contrary to acts of Parliament
granting authority for the continuation of the evil. As
white servants, however, could not be obtained in sufficiently
large numbers to supply the demand for labor, and as the
indefinite term of their service was prejudicial to the inter
est of their masters, there followed, in the eighteenth cen
tury, an increasing demand for Negro slaves in the agricul
tural colonies.

The Christians, like the Mohammedans, justified their
enslavement of foreigners on the ground of their being cap
tives in war, but in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
when the Europeans were engaged in the exploitation of
Christian the New World, slaves were no longer merely
slavery. taken over as a sequel of war but became also

an object of commerce to supply the colonies with cheap
labor. This change of attitude was justified by the Chris
tian world on the ground that, although it was contrary to
an unwritten law to enslave a Christian, this principle was
not applicable to the unconverted Negroes. Driven later
from this position when numerous Negroes accepted Chris
tianity, they salved their consciences by a peculiar philoso
phy of the officials of the church to the effect that conversion
did not work manumission in the case of the Negro who dif
fered so widely from the white man. The substance of this
was soon incorporated into the laws of the colonies.

Prior to the operation of the slave trade for the purpose
of exploitation, there had been sufficient infiltration of the
Negroes into southern European countries to make their
African presence no exception to the rule. African

slaves in slaves were brought to Spain, and this trade

Europo. was f^her extended by the Portuguese when

they conquered the Mohammedans of North Africa. After

The Negro Enslaved 19

the extensive explorations of Prince Henry, the Portuguese
ships were bringing to that country more than seven or
eight hundred slaves every year to serve as domestic
servants and to work the estates evacuated by the Moors.
Slaves were so common in the city of Seville in 1474 that
Ferdinand and Isabella nominated a celebrated Negro,
Juan de Valladolid, as the "mayoral of the Negroes" in
that city. 2

This slavery in the Iberian peninsula, of course, was of
a mild form.; for, despite the suggestions of men commer
cially inclined, the Christian Queen Isabella had refused
to permit the traders to embark upon the slavery in
enterprise as a commercial one. Furthermore, Spain,
to prevent the spread of heathenism and to promote re
ligion, she allowed only Christian Negroes to be carried
to the colonies. 3 At the death of Isabella, however, King
Ferdinand, who was less interested in the Negroes than
was his companion, gradually yielded to the requests of the
merchant class, and unconverted Negroes were brought to
the Spanish colonies. But Ferdinand did not give exten
sive privileges to all persons desiring to import Negroes,
and at times undertook to check the trade. In the reign of
Charles V, Bishop las Cassas urged a plan for importing
Negroes to take the place of the enfeebled Indian slaves,
and this plan, once adopted, became the policy of the Span
iards in dealing with the Negroes in their colonies.

All of the seafaring nations of Europe took part in
this enterprise. The Portuguese, the first to make extensive
explorations on the coasts of Africa under the direction of
Prince Henry of that country, built the first Traders on
slave fort at Elmina, on the Gold Coast, in the African
1482. The Dutch, too, at the time of their Coast
struggle for freedom from Spanish domination in 1599,

2 W. E. B. DuBois, The Negro, p. 146.

3 C. G. Woodson, The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861, p. 19.

The Negro In Our History

attacked the forts of the Portuguese, then subject to Spain,
and engaged in the slave trade themselves. The English,
desirous of reaping some of these benefits for their own
commerce, undertook in 1562 to secure this trade through
Sir John Hawkins. Uniting religion with the slave trade,
he ordered his crews to " serve God daily," and "to love
one another." 4 He went first to Hispaniola with three

INSPECTING A NEGRO CAPTIVE

hundred Negroes whom he traded for pearls, hides and
other products. The second voyage was more hazardous,
and he failed in the third. In spite of his murderous plun
dering, however, his chronicler entreats that "his name
be praised f orevermore, Amen. 5

Yet men of the type of Hawkins are not to be unsym-
pathetically condemned. In that day there was no sharp

*Hakluyt s Voyages, Vol. Ill, p. 521.

s E. Charming, History of the United States, Vol. I, p. 115.

The Negro Enslaved 21

distinction between a pirate and an honorable seaman.
Some of the sea rovers held commissions of their God-fearing
sovereigns who promoted these enterprises. piracy and
The white race, moreover, has not yet emerged commerce,
from the stage of primitive civilization when right was
restricted to one s blood kin. If strangers within the gates
could not be murdered, there was no moral law restraining
one from abusing the subjects of non-Christian nations.
Mendez believed that his slaughter of captives was for the
glory of God, and Francis Drake, the notorious plunderer
of his time, commended his lieutenant "to the tuition of
Him that with his blood redeemed us. " 6 In this state of
moral backwardness, therefore, it did not startle Christen
dom when there appeared in Virginia in 1619 "a Dutch
manne-of-war that sold us twenty negars, thus introducing
in the United States the curse of slavery from which this
country has not yet been thoroughly redeemed.

The slave trade was mainly promoted through a few
large trading corporations. Among the first of these were
the Dutch West India Company, established in 1621, and
the Eoyal African Company, chartered by the Slave-trade
English in 1672. These corporations main- corporations,
tained a line of vessels plying between Europe and certain
slave-trading ports established on the Guinea coast. 7 The
French operated in the region of the Senegal, the English
on the Gambia, and the Dutch and English on the Gold
Coast. In the course of time the slave trade in the interior
of Africa was highly developed. Wars were being waged
for the sole purpose of securing slaves for the market, and
when captured they were brought to the coast and sold to the
representatives of the companies with vessels in port for
their exportation. They were not natives of the countries

GE. Charming, History of the U. 8., I, p. 116.

7 For a sketch of the early slave trade see George F. Zook s The
Royal Adventurers Trading Into Africa.

22 The Negro In Our History

along the coast. In fact, Africans of these ports were
seldom sold for this purpose except when a rival nation
captured the slaves of the masters living in a hostile section.
Most of the slaves supplying this demand were brought from
the distant countries in the interior of Africa.

The commodities given in exchange for these slaves were
sent out from manufacturing centers like Newport in Rhode
Island and Liverpool in England. These vessels carried
iron bars, rum, cloth, shells, crystal beads, brass pans, and
The Slavers, foreign coins, to be exchanged for slaves.
The slaves thus purchased had been driven to the coast in
coffles, sometimes for distances of more than one thousand
miles, crossing a country which had practically no facilities
for transportation with the exception of those with which
nature had endowed it. As it was necessary to go most of
the way walking, and as the means of subsistence were not
always to be secured, many of the slaves dropped dead
from thirst and famine. Those who succeeded in surviving
Horrors of the the ordeal of this drive to the coast were
Slave Trade, presented for sale on arrival. Captives ac
cepted as valuable were shackled and herded together like
cattle in ships, which made their way to the West Indies.
The space usually allowed for the standing room of a
slave was just a few square inches. Crowded thus to
gether in the lower parts of an unsanitary vessel, thou
sands of these unfortunates died of various diseases be
fore reaching America. Occasionally there would arise,
among the captives on board, a riot to liberate them
selves by killing their owners, but the system was finally
reduced to such a safe procedure that little fear therefrom
was experienced. 8

These slaves were not brought directly to the continental
ports. Slave labor did not at first seem very profitable

s This trade has been described by John R. Spears in his The Ameri
can Slave Trade.

The Negro Enslaved

along the Atlantic, but in the West Indies, devoted to the
production of cane sugar then so much in demand, African
slaves were welcomed. They were carried to these islands,
where they were exchanged mainly for such raw materials
as molasses which, when brought by the slav- Slaves carr i e d
ers to our ports, was manufactured into rum. to the
With this rum the ships set out to Africa Wes
again on their triangular route connecting with the commer
cial centers in three widely separated parts of the world.

In the West Indies the Ne- ,__

groes were successfully ex
ploited so as to make those
islands the wealthiest colo
nies of the world. In the
course of time, however,
after having been well
broken in and in some cases
after having taken over a
considerable portion of the
western civilization, many
slaves were brought from
the West Indies to the
United States. Some of
them had then learned to
read and write two or three
modern languages. 9 When,
however, such Negroes proved to be the source of discon
tent and insurrections because of the mental development
they had experienced, the American colonists deemed it wiser
to import slaves in their crude form directly from Africa.
As to exactly how many Negroes were thus brought away
from Africa, authorities widely differ. When the slave

9 For the mental development of these slaves see C. G. Woodson s
The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861, pp. 82-84; and The Journal
of Negro History, Vol. I, pp. 177-189,

BRANDING A NEGRO WOMAN SLAVE

24 The Negro In Our History

trade was in full swing 50,000 or 100,000 were brought
over every year. Some authorities believe that not
The enormity more than 5,000,000, while others contend
of the trade. that 10,000,000 Africans were expatriated.
But to figure out the extent to which this process of de
population affected Africa, one must bear in mind that for
every slave imported into America at least four or five
others had to meet death in the numerous wars waged
solely for supplying the slave market, in the inhuman drive
to the coast, and in the cruel shipment in unsanitary ships
hardly suitable for importing hogs. Africa probably lost
more than 50,000,000 natives. When we think of how
the recent conscription of 4,000,000 men upset the economic
and social life in our own country, we can easily estimate
the effect of the loss to Africa of 50,000,000 of its in
habitants.

The source of these Negroes will be of much interest.
They came in the main from Guinea and the Gold Coast.
Among these were a few of the most intelligent of the
Sources of Africans, the Senegalese, with an infusion of
the slaves. Arabic blood, especially valuable for their
work as mechanics and artisans. Then there were the
Mandingoes, who were considered gentle in demeanor but
prone to theft. The Coromantees brought from the Gold
Coast were hearty and stalwart in mind and body, and
for that reason frequently the source of slave insurrections
which became the eternal dread of the masters. It was
said, however, that the Coromantees were not revengeful
when well treated. Slavers brought over some Whydahs,
Nagoes and Pawpaws, as they were much desired by the
planters because they were lusty, industrious, cheerful and
submissive. There came also the Gaboons, who were physi
cally weak and consequently unsuited for purposes of
exploitation. The colonists imported, too, some Gambia
Negroes, prized for their meekness, whereas the Eboes

The Negro Enslaved 2.5

from Calabar were not desired, because they were inclined
to commit suicide rather than bear the yoke of slavery.
The Congoes, Angolas and the Eboes gave their masters
much trouble by running away.

The lot of the slave in the West Indies was most unfor
tunate. Owing to the absentee ownership, the inefficient
management of the plantations, and the paucity of white
women to serve as restraining influences on masters, the
system of slavery developed there proved to Theslave
be of a cruel sort. The slaves were treated in the
more as brutes subjected to a process known * West Indies -
as li breaking in." Some were assigned to work among
well seasoned slaves, and a few were given individual tasks.
When they became w r ell "broken in," they were grouped
by families in separate quarters, surrounded by small tracts
of land on which they were required to raise their own food.
Such things as clothing, dried fish, molasses, rum and salt,
which they could not easily produce, were issued from the
plantation commissary. They went to work in gangs, some
tilling the sugar cane in the fields, some to work in the mills
and stills, some at handicrafts, and others in domestic
service. 10

As few implements had been introduced and the planters
of that day did not easily take to labor-saving devices, most
of the cultivation of the crops was done with the hoe, which
required the hardest labor. Under these condi- Hardships
tions the slaves could not develop into a robust the cause
class and, worst of all, many of them died as
a result of this drudgery. While the death-rate was un
usually high, the birth-rate was exceptionally small, as
there was no provision for taking care of the African new
born. Speaking of Jamaica, a surgeon said that one-third
of the babies died in the first month, and few of the imported

10 This purely economic aspect of slavery has been unscientifically
discussed by U. B. Phillips in his American Negro Slavery.

The Negro In Our Histoiy

women bore children. A contemporary said that more than
a quarter of the babies died within the first nine days of
"jaw fall," and another fourth before they passed their
second year. This meant that the colonies had to depend
on the importation of new African slaves, thus giving
stimulus to the slave trade to supply the demand for labor.

THE FAITHFUL SLAVE

Among the Spanish and French colonists the condition
of the blacks was somewhat different. The home coun
tries in these two cases insisted on the enlightenment of the
The enlight- slaves and were more generous than the Eng-
enment of lish in offering bondmen opportunities to toil
the slaves.^ upwar d. While the slaves as such did not
fare much better than they did on the English plantation,
the tendency of the Latins to interbreed with the blacks,
and their custom of recognizing and elevating their mulatto
offspring, offered a way of escape to a large number of

The Negro Enslaved 27

Negroes among the French and Spaniards, who cohabited
with Negro women rather than bring wives from their home
countries. A large number of bondmen in Latin- America
secured their manumission by meritorious service and
thereafter had the status of freemen. 11

An individual of this class closely connected with our
local history was Estevanecito, or little Stephen. He arose
to usefulness and prominence among the Spaniards while
they were extending their explorations into Estevanecito
Mexico and into what is now the southwestern the Negro
part of the United States. Estevanecito was explorer -
the moving spirit of the expedition conducted there by Fray
Marcos de Niza. He was usually the forerunner of the
forces preparing the way for those who were to claim the
country, going far enough in advance of the expedition to
clear their path of hostile Indians. His work was well
planned and successfully executed during the most of his
tours, but he met a stubborn resistance at Cibola, where he
fell mortally wounded in trying to carry the town by
storm. 12

11 This interbreeding is set forth in detail by C. G. Woodson in
The Journal of Negro History, Vol. Ill, p. 335.

12 "Leaving the northernmost Spanish settlement of the western
coast," says a legend, "Fray Marcos took with him Estevan, the black
companion of Cabeza de Vaca, who had been in search of the El
Dorado and Seven Cities of so much concern to the Spaniards. A
few weeks after setting out Fray Marcos sent Estevan in command
of a number of Indians fifty or sixty leagues ahead to discover the
El Dorado. The arrangement was that if Estevan found anything
worth while he would send back a large cross. If the information
obtained did not seem valuable, he would send a small cross. Fray
Marcos was much delighted four days later when there returned an
Indian bearing a large cross and describing the seven large cities of
imposing lime and stone structures with portals ornamented with
turquoise. Too eager to await the coming of Fray Marcos, Estevan
undertook to take the city, where he was overpowered by superior
forces and slain. Presenting himself as the agent of the white man,
he was branded a liar by the Indians, who thought it incredible
for a black man to be the agent of two whites. They found Estevan
greedy, immoral and cowardly, and when he sought to escape, killed
him." See Channing, History of the United States, Vol. I, pp. 75-76.

28 The Negro In Our History

Among these fortunate Negroes there was in Guatemala,
in the seventeenth century, a freedman who had accumu
lated much wealth. He had secured his liberty by paying
his kind master a handsome sum for his freedom. There-
A thrifty after he bought a large farm and considerably

freedman in increased his holdings by making other pur
chases. He lived in Agua Caliente, a little
Indian village on the road to the city of Guatemala, in that
part of the country then said to abound with gold, a treasure
which the Spaniards had for many years sought in vain.
Although the sources of this Negro s wealth were cattle,
sheep, goats, and his trade in butter and cheese with the
City of Guatemala, the Spaniards persisted in believing
that his wealth came from the hidden treasure. 13

In his travels through this tropical region, Sir Thomas
Gage found a still more interesting Negro of this class.
While sailing along the Atlantic coast of Costa Rica, Gage s
The Black ship was captured by two corsairs under the
Corsair. fl a g O f ^he Dutch, who were then struggling

against Spain for their freedom. The commander of this
ship was a mulatto named Diaguillo, a native of Havana,
where his mother then lived. Because of maltreatment by
the Governor of Campeche, to whom he was attached as a
servant, this mulatto desperately ventured to swim to one
of the Dutch ships near-by. Offering himself to serve the
Dutch against those who had abused him, he easily in
gratiated himself into their favor. Soon thereafter he mar
ried a Dutch girl and arose to the position of captain of a
vessel under the command of the famous and dreadful
commander named Pie de Palo. Coming aboard the ship
on which Gage was sailing, the corsair took four thousand
pesos worth of jewelry and pearls and deprived the indi
viduals of their personal belongings. But because of Gage s

i*The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I, p. 395; and Sir Thomas
Gage s Voyages, Part 3, Ch. II.

The Negro Enslaved 29

ministerial profession Diaguillo permitted him to retain
some books, pictures and clothes, saying to him, * * If fortune
to-day is on my side, to-morrow it will be on yours, and
what I have won to-day, that I may lose to-morrow."
Diaguillo then prepared a luxurious dinner, to which he
invited Thomas Gage. Thereafter he took leave of the
captives, thanking the crew for the good luck they had
procured him. 14

The most interesting example of the enlightened Negro
of this class in the West Indies was Francis Williams, the
son of one John Williams, liberated in 1708, and ranked
among those persons in the island against Francis
whom slave testimony was forbidden. These Williams,
same privileges then extended to other mem
bers of his family, and attached to them unusual impor
tance among the white people with whom they moved so
cially. We have much more information about his son
Francis. The family was of such good report, and the youth
Francis had exhibited so many evidences of mental capacity,
that early in the eighteenth century the Duke of Montague,
desiring to put to test some of his opinions about the capa
bilities of the Negro, had Francis instructed in an elemen
tary school in Jamaica and then sent to an English grammar
school to prepare for Cambridge University. After some
years Francis Williams completed his education at that in
stitution and returned to Jamaica between 1738 and 1748.

Impressed more than ever with the truth that a Negro
trained in the same way as a white man will exhibit the
same intellectual attainments, the Duke of Montague sought
further to advance his protege by securing for him a seat
in the Jamaica Council. This proposition, The D uke of
however, was opposed by Governor Trelawny, Montague,
who contended that admitting a black man to the Council

" The Journ-al of Negro History, Vol. I, p. 395; and Sir Thomas
Gage s Voyages, Part 3, Ch. II.

30 The Negro In Our History

would excite restlessness among the slaves. Whether or not
the governor was diplomatic or prejudiced is not known.
He did add a Negro detachment to the army employed in
Jamaica but he never permitted the ambitious youth to sit
in the Council. Williams settled in Spanish Town, the capi
tal of the island, and during the rest of his life conducted
a classical school. In this position he made a reputation
for himself as a schoolmaster and figured somewhat promi
nently as a poet. The only evidence of his attainments in
this field, however, consists of a Latin poem which conforms
in most respects to the standard of that age. It seemed,
however, that the poet was not very popular among his own
people, as he was regarded as haughty and opinionated,
treating his fellow blacks with contempt and entertaining a
rather high opinion of his own knowledge. He was also
charged with being a sycophant and racial toady who said
and did much to do his race harm. 15

This better situation of a few Negroes was due also to the
fact that a large number of slaves in remote parts of the
West Indies and Latin-America asserted themselves and
The Maroons, escaped to uninhabited districts to declare and
maintain their independence rather than bear the yoke
of bondage. In parts where the Negroes were as numerous
as the whites, these fugitives often jeopardized the very life
of the colony. As such, they were known as Maroons. They
had few arms that the primitive man did not possess, but
because of their resourcefulness and power in military
organization they became a source of much terror through
out Latin-America. 16 In the small colony of Guatemala in
the seventeenth century there were as many as three hun-

15 The career of Francis Williams is treated in The Journal of
Negro History, Vol. II, pp. 146-159. A better account may be found
in William James Gardner s History of Jamaica, p. 31; and in
Edward Long s History of Jamaica, p. 234.

10 Dallas, History of Maroons, p. 26.

The Negro Enslaved 31

dred such Negroes who had resorted to the woods and
could not be subdued by the forces sent against them.

The greatest enterprise of the Maroons, however, was
exhibited not by any particular individual but rather by
that of the little Negro Republic in Brazil, called Palmares,
styled by Professor Charles E. Chapman as The Negro
the Negro Numantia, because its career resem- Numantia.
bles so much that of Numantia against which the Romans
fought for a number of years before they could invade the
beleaguered city. Because of the bad treatment of the
Portuguese slaves, many of those imported from Guinea
escaped to the forests, where they established villages called
quilombos, the type to which Palmares, in the Province of
Pernambuco, belonged. It was not long, however, before
this town extended its sway over a number of others set
tled by persons of the same antecedents. At one time it
was reported to have a population of twenty thousand, with
ten thousand fighting men. Palmares, the name also of the
capital of the republic, was surrounded by wooden walls
made of the trunks of trees and entered by huge gates
provided with facilities for wide surveillance and sentry
service.

In the course of time the population of this village
gradually increased because of the eagerness of slaves and
freemen to try their fortunes in the forests. In the begin
ning they maintained themselves by a sort The rise of
of banditry, taking food, slaves and women, the republic,
whether mulatto, black, or white. They later settled down
to agriculture, and established seemingly peaceful trade
relations with the Portuguese settlements in the less hostile
parts of Brazil. Palmares then developed into a sort of
nation, uniting the desirable features of the republican
and monarchial form of government, presided over by a
chief executive called the Zomle, who ruled with absolute

32 The Negro In Our History

authority during life. "The right to candidacy," says Pro
fessor Chapman, "was restricted to a group recognized
as composing the bravest men of the community. Any man
in the state might aspire to this dignity providing he had
Negro blood in his veins. There were other officers, both
of a military and a civil character. In the interest of good
order the Zombes made laws imposing the death penalty
for murder, adultery and robbery. Influenced by their
antecedents, slavery was not discontinued, but a premium
was placed on freedom in that every Negro who won his
freedom by a successful flight to Palmares remained free,
whereas those who were captured as slaves continued as
such in Palmares.

This Negro Republic, however, was in the eyes of the
Portuguese an unnatural growth. It was considered a
resort for undesirable aliens who constituted an ever-in
creasing danger to the prosperity of Brazil. In 1698, there-
fore, Governor Caetano de Mello of Pernam-

destniction buco ordered an expedition to proceed against
ares * the city. These brave blacks met the invading
forces and indisputably defeated them. Returning later,
however, with a formidable army of seven thousand men
under the command of a more competent soldier and pro
vided, too, with adequate artillery, the Portuguese reached
the city after some difficulty and placed it in a state of siege.
The defense of this city was heroic. "After the Portuguese
had breached the walls in three places," says the annalist,
"their infantry attacked in force. They entered the city,
but had to take it foot by foot. At last the defenders came
to the center of Palmares where a high cliff impeded further
retreat. Death or surrender were the only alternatives.
Seeing that his cause was lost beyond repair, the Zombe
hurled himself over the cliff, and his action was followed
by the most distinguished of his fighting men. Some per
sons were indeed taken, but it is perhaps a tribute to

The Negro Enslaved 33

Palmares, though a grewsome one, that they were all put
to death; it was not safe to enslave these men, despite the
value of their labor. Thus passed Palmares, the Negro
Numantia, most famous and greatest of the Brazilian
quilombos." 17

17 The Journal of Negro History, Vol. Ill, pp. 31-32.

CHAPTER III

SLAVERY IN ITS MILD FORM

THE system of exploiting Africans in the West Indies
did not reach the slave States until the cotton gin and other
mechanical appliances instrumental in effecting the indus-
Economic trial revolution made slavery seemingly .profit-
slavery in the able in the United States through the cotton
plantation system resulting therefrom. 1 The
first slaves brought to the American colonies were few, and
they served largely as house servants, so closely attached to
the homes of their masters that they were treated like mem
bers of the families. No restriction on the mental develop
ment of the slaves was therefore devised, as it was deemed
necessary to effect in them whatever speedy improvement
was possible, with a view to increasing their efficiency.

In the course of time the number of slaves decidedly in
creased in certain colonies devoted to agriculture. There
were about 6,000 slaves in Virginia in 1700, and they so
rapidly multiplied as factors in the widely extending
tobacco culture that in 1760 one-half of the inhabitants of
that colony were slaves. To supply the need for cheap
labor in the production of rice and indigo, the blacks in-

i Slavery in its first form is briefly treated in Channinp s History
of the United States, II, 336-400, and in A. B. Hart s Slavery and
Abolition, Ch. IV. The slaves opportunities for enlightenment are
presented in C. G. Woodson s The Education of the Negro Prior to
1861, 18-150. See also Bryan Edwards History of the West Indies:
Sir Harry Johnston s The Negro in the New World; and the Journal
of Negro History, I, 132-150, 163-216, 243-264, 399-435: II, 78-82,
105-125, 186-191; 229-251, 411-422, 429-430; III, 1-21, 22-28, 33-44,
45-54, 55-89, 211-328, 335-353, 381-434.

Slavery In Its Mild Form

creased so fast in South Carolina after 1730 that slaves
soon exceeded the whites and outnumbered them two to one
in 1760. This increase tended to degrade the position of
the white servant, to "cause pride and ruin the industry
of our white people, who, seeing the race of poor creatures
below them, looked down upon them as if they were slaves."
In 1756 Andrew Burnaby reported that the people of Vir
ginia hardly regarded the Indians and Negroes as human
beings, and that it was almost impossible to convict a white
man for killing a Negro or an Indian. 2

There were not many slaves in the northern part of the

United States. Pennsyl
vania had a considerable
number, however, for Wil
liam Penn himself owned
slaves. A few toiled on
the farms along the Hud
son, and the number in the
city of New Few slaves in
York reached the North.
6,000 when the whole popu
lation was 40,000. Boston
was one of the centers in
New England to which
some Negroes were brought,
but a still larger number
doubtless landed at the
ports connecting more closely with the West Indies. Many
of these went to Newport and thence they gradually scat
tered to other points. In 1748 South Kingston had 1,405
whites, 381 Negroes and 193 Indians. New England, how
ever, because of its economic condition, never became the
home of many slaves ; for in 1770, when there were 697,624
slaves in the thirteen States, only 3,763 of these were in

THE DASH FOR LIBERTY

2 Andrew Burnaby, Travels Through North America, p. 31.

36 The Negro- In Our History

New England. At that time 36,323 of the slave population
lived in the Middle States and 656,538 in the South.

The Negroes, however, did not yield to this system with
out resistance. In New York, in 1712, an insurrection of
slaves grew to such an extent that, had it not been for
timely aid from the garrison, the city would have been
Early Negro burned. Whites were attacked in their homes
insurrections. an( j on ^he streets by the blacks in Charleston,
South Carolina, in 1720. In 1730 many slaves in this
colony actually armed and embodied to destroy the whites.
Two hundred Negroes assembled near the mouth of the
Rappahannock River, Virginia, to kill the white people
in a church, but when the plot was discovered they fled.
In 1723 some desperate Negroes planned to burn the city of
Boston, and so much fear was expected that the city had to
take extra precaution against "Indians, Negro or Mulatto
Servants, or Slaves." A number of Negroes arose against
their masters in Savannah, Georgia, in 1788, but fled when
twice fired upon, as they were already disconcerted by a
disagreement as to time.

In Williamsburg, Virginia, there occurred an insurrection
of the blacks in 1730, occasioned by the rumor that Governor
Spottswood had arrived with instructions to free all persons
who had been baptized. Five counties sent forth armed
Eighteenth men w ^ orc ^ ers to kill the slaves if they
Century refused to submit. That year a Negro in

uprisings. Maiden, Massachusetts, plundered and burned
his master s home because he was sold to a man in Salem,
whom he disliked. In 1731 slaves being imported from
Guinea by George Scott of Rhode Island asserted themselves
and murdered three of the crew. Captain John Major of
Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in charge of a cargo of
slaves, was murdered with all of his crew the following
year by slaves carried on this same route. Captain Beers
of Rhode Island, and all his unfortunate coworkers except

Slavery In Its Mild Form

two, suffered the same fate when on a similar voyage a few
years later. 3

In 1741 there broke out a formidable insurrection of
slaves in New York City. To repress this uprising thir
teen slaves were burned alive, eighteen were hanged, and
eighty transported. Two of those exiled were sent to the
West Indies, and it became a custom thereafter The New York
for persons having "any Negro men, strong Plot of 1741 -
and hearty, though not of the best moral character," to

s eft enfui de chezles Souffignes, la nuit du 12

courint, Un M$re Bfelae nooime POMPE , d tfrsviron cinj pieds cimj pmsct*
r ?0bfte. j ii a rte achete dcr nit* rente nt de M. Perm, negotiant dt cctie tille;
far liit &lt;ja&lt;tn| $1 a dccampe on gikt tt des culottes brumes : Celui qui le ramencr*

1T PIASTRES de Recoropcnfe, ct tes frais rajfonnables qu i! aura fijts. Qui-
k retires ctee tut fcrapourfuivii iuivant ia derniere rigucur de la Loi, par

JOHNSTON ar FURSS.

T* UN-AWAY from the Subfcribers,

in the Night of the lath Iiift. a Sailor Negro Slave name*
POMPEY", about 5 Fecf 5 inches high, and is Rotmft j fee was lately
w "M&gt;;ht ot" Mr. Perrj*, Merchant in this Town j had on when he w yt
ay a brown Jacket and Breeches, Whoever brings him to the Sab*
ftriber* fh*ll have IGHT DOLL A R S Reward, and rcafoaable
Citsrfi paid. Any Perfon harbouring him will be pro/edited accor-*
din^ to the utmoft Rigour of the La- f by

JOHNSTON & P^RSS.

AN ADVERTISEMENT OF A RUNAWAY SLAVE

brand them as subjects of transportation to the West Indies.
In 1754 C. Croft of Charleston, South Carolina, had two
of his female Negroes burned alive because they set fire
to his buildings. In 1755 Mark and Phillis, slaves of John
Codman of Charleston, having learned that their master
had by his will made them free, poisoned him that they
might expedite the matter. Mark was hanged and Phillis
was burned alive. 4

3 What the first slaves did to get rid of their masters is sketched
in Joshua Coffin s Slave Insurrections.

* /bid., p. 8.

38 The Negro In Our History

In spite of these uprisings, however, the slave population
continued to increase, and this result was not strange;
for in 1770 there were in England itself not less than 15,000
Slavery in slaves brought in by traders as attendants and
England. servants. There was no decided check to this

influx until the famous Somerset decision. Somerset had
run away from his master in Virginia. When captured he
was to be shipped to Jamaica, where he was to be sold. A
writ was procured by Gran-
ville Sharp, however, and
there followed a hearing
which finally brought the
question before Lord Mans
field, who gave the opinion

The Somerset that the state
decision. of a slave is

so odious that it can be
supported only by positive
law to that effect, which
did not exist in England. 5
He therefore ordered the
slave to be discharged. Lib
eral as this decision was,
however, it did not seem GBANVILLE SHARP

to have any effect on the colonies, although the struggle
for the rights of man in this country tended to do much
to direct attention to the condition of the Negro.

There were then in the American colonies many slaves
whose condition constituted an exception to the rule,
and the slaves as a whole were much better treated at
that time than they were during the nineteenth century.
Exceptional Most of them were given some opportunity
slaves. for enlightenment and religious instruction.

Embracing these opportunities, many of them early estab-

6 Hurd, Freedom and Bondage, I, 189-191.

Slavery In Its Mild Form 39

lished themselves as freemen, constituting an essential factor
in the economic life of their communities. Some became
artisans of peculiar skill, others obtained the position of
contractors, and not a few became planters themselves,
owning extensive estates and numbers of slaves. Sir
Thomas Gage found a number of such planters of color in
Guatemala in the seventeenth century; the mixed breeds
of Louisiana afforded a number of this type, and the Eng
lish colonies along the coast were no exception to this rule.
John Cassor, probably one of the Negroes brought over by
the Dutch in 1619, became an owner of slaves in Virginia.
Andrew Bryan, a Negro Baptist preacher, was widely
known as a slaveholder in Savannah, Georgia, before 1790.
This attitude resulted largely from the number of white
men who became interested in the welfare of the Negroes
during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Among
these were Paul le June, a Jesuit missionary The clergy and
in Canada, Le Petit and Francois Phillibert the Macks.
Watrum of the same sect in Louisiana, Alphonso Sandoval
in Havana, Morgan Goodwyn in Virginia, Thomas Bacon in
Maryland, and George Keith in Pennsylvania. Some of
these liberal workers cooperated with the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, to which the
Negroes were indebted for most of their early enlighten
ment. These reformers contended that the gospel was sent
also to the slaves, who should be prepared by mental develop
ment to receive it. With the increasing interest in educa
tion, it became more restricted to the clergy and such other
well chosen persons recommended by them and attached
to the churches. The impetus given the propagation of the
gospel among the crude colonists settling in America re
sulted also in the proselyting of the Negroes who were
then being brought from the jungles of Africa in increasing
numbers. It was soon evident, however, that little could be
effected in the enlightenment of these blacks without first

40 The Negro In Our History

teaching them the English language. In almost every case,
therefore, during the eighteenth century, when the clergy
undertook the teaching of the gospel among the blacks, it
involved also extensive instruction in the fundamentals of
education, that their message might have the desired effect. 9

There was, therefore, in America during the eighteenth
century, a sort of slavery differing materially from that of
the nineteenth. 7 In fact, the Negroes were about as well
Eighteenth provided with schools as the whites in some
Century of the colonies. The first school for the educa

tion of the whites in the Carolinas was estab
lished in 1716, and a school for the education of the Negroes
was established about one generation later. There were
in a few colonies, schools not only for free Negroes but for
slaves, who were sometimes taught in the classes with the
children of their masters. In some cases, when the Negroes
experienced sufficient mental development to qualify as
teachers themselves, they were called upon to serve their
masters children in this capacity. There were schools for
Negroes in almost all of the cities and towns where they
were found. 8

It was fortunate for the Negroes that many schools of
the middle colonies were conducted by the indentured ser
vant class of low estate. It looks rather strange that our
Convicts as fathers should commit to the care of the con-
teachers, victs, who had been taken from the prisons in
England and indentured in America, the task of educating
their children. Yet this was the case. Jonathan Boucher
said, in 1773, that two-thirds of the teachers in the colony of
Maryland were such felons. 9 As these were despised by

o The Journal of Negro History, I, 87, 233, 361, and 492, and
II, 51.

7 Woodson, Education of the Negro Prior to 1861, Chapter II.

s Ibid., 10 to 150.

9 Jonathan Boucher, A View of Causes and Consequences of the
American Revolution, 39.

Slavery In Its Mild Form 41

the whites of the higher classes, they were forced to asso
ciate with the Negroes, who learned from them how to read
and write and were thereby prepared to enlighten their
own fellow-men.

The location of some of these schools established for
Negroes will be of much interest. Samuel Thomas undertook
the instruction of certain Negroes in the Goose Creek Parish
in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1695. A Early schools
school for the more extensive instruction of for Negroes,
the Negroes was established there in 1744, with Harry and
Andrew, the first of the Negro race to be employed as
teachers in America. Further interest was shown in the
enlightenment of the slaves in that section by gentlemen
and ladies of consequence, and especially by Eliza Lucas,
later the wife of the renowned Justice Pinckney. The Rev.
Mr. Davies devoted much of his time to this work among
the Negroes in Virginia, as did Hugh Neill and William
Sturgeon, ministers in Pennsylvania. Elias Neau had a
school for Negroes in New York as early as 1706, and
Anthony Benezet began to hold evening classes for them
in Philadelphia in 1750. The settlers of New England
then tolerated the instruction of the slaves along with their
own children.

The evidences of the mental development of the Negroes
of that day are found in the words of the masters them
selves. In offering slaves for sale and advertising for
fugitives, masters spoke of their virtues as well intellectual
as their shortcomings. Judging from what development,
they said about them in these advertisements, one
must conclude that many of the eighteenth century slaves
had taken over modern civilization and had made
themselves useful and skilled laborers, with a knowl
edge of the modern languages, the fundamentals of mathe
matics and science, and acquaintance with some of the
professions. It was a common thing to refer to a slave as

42 The Negro In Our History

being smart and exhibiting evidences of having experienced
most of that mental development which usually results
from what we now call a common school education. Some
spoke "good English," in contradistinction to others who
spoke "very much broken English." In other cases the
fugitive would be credited with speaking "proper English"
or speaking very properly.

Brought in from the West Indies, where they had been
in contact with all nationalities of Europe and had not
been restricted in their development, many of these slaves
had picked up more than the mere fragments of education.
Slaves ft was no * unusual to find a slave speaking

with some Spanish, French and English and exceed
ingly good English. William Moore had a
slave who spoke Swedish and English well. Philip French of
Philadelphia had another who spoke Dutch and good Eng
lish, and John Williams, of the same state, owned a Negro
who spoke very good English and was very fluent in his
talk. Another type of this sort was a slave who escaped
from Charleston in 1799. He spoke both French and Eng
lish fluently, was very artful, and succeeded in passing as
a free man. A better example was a slave of Thomas May
of Maryland, whom his master considered plausible and
complacent. He could speak good English, a little
French and a few words of High Dutch. He had been in
the West Indies and in Canada, serving as a waiting-man
to a gentleman, and had thereby had the opportunity of
getting acquainted with the different parts of America,
In addition to the mere knowledge of how to express
themselves fluently in the modern tongues, a considerable
number of the fugitives advertised in some parts had
Slaves able learned to read and write. Advertising for
to read a Negro named Cato, Joseph Hale said that

"he speaks good English and can read and
write. Another said, "he is an artfull fellow and can read

Slavery In Its Mild Form 43

and write, and it is probable that he may endeavor to make
his escape out of the Province. And still another was de
scribed in the terms, "He can read and write and it is
likely that he may have a counterfeit pass. An examina
tion of hundreds of advertisements for fugitive slaves dur
ing the eighteenth century shows that almost a third of
them could read and write. 10

Another evidence as to the favorable condition of the
Negroes during the eighteenth century is their economic
condition. The kind of garments they wore and the manner
in which they lived throw much light on this situation. In
some cases they lived in houses, enjoying the same comforts
as their masters. In other cases their quarters were much
better than those then provided for the poor whites in
Europe and for the indentured servants in the colonies, as
some masters did not take much care of such laborers, since,
when their term of service expired, they would no longer
be of use to them.

According to the testimony of many masters in the adver
tisements for fugitives, they were in most cases well at
tired. For example, a master of Philadelphia in 1721 said
that his slave escaped, wearing "a dark brown colored coat
and jacket, a pair of white fustian breeches, a slaves well
gray milled cap with a red border, a pair of dressed,
new yarn stockings with a pair of brown worsted under them
or in his pockets." A slave owner in Maryland spoke of
another fugitive as having "a black cloth coat, a high hat,
white flannel waistcoat, a checked shirt, a pair of everlast
ing breeches, a pair of yarn stockings, a pair of old pumps,
a worsted cap, an old castor hat, and sundry other clothes.
A Boston master in 1761 lost a slave, who had, "when he
went away, a beaver hat, a green worsted coat, a close-
bodied coat with a green narrow frieze cape, a gray coat, a

10 For a treatment of the eighteenth century slave see The Journal
of Xegro History, I, 175-189.

44 The Negro In Our History

black and white homespun jacket, a flannel checked shirt,
gray yarn stockings, a flannel shirt, a bundle of other
clothes, and a violin. White persons at that time were not
generally better clad. 11

In not a few other cases these fugitives are mentioned as
persons who had not only an ample supply of clothing, but
considerable money. John Dulin of Baltimore, in 1793,
advertised for a slave supplied with ample funds, and
Slaves in ^he cont ext of the advertisement indicates that
good circum- the money was earned by the slave while hir
ing his time. Referring to another fugitive, a
master said : "As I expect he has a sum of money with him,
probably he may get some one to forge a pass for him and
pass as a free man. Some Negroes were widely known, as
they were serving as mechanics and artisans, and a few of
them became contractors on their own account, overseers for
their masters, and finally freemen established in business
for themselves. 12

In the absence of restrictions which characterized the
economic slavery of the following century, they had entered
many of the higher pursuits. Some of these Negroes were
serving as teachers and preachers, and a few were engaged
Slaves In * n t ^ ie P rac tice of medicine, as was then corn-
higher mon in this country. Referring to one of his
slaves, in 1740, James Leonard of Philadelphia
said he could "bleed and draw teeth, pretending to be a great
doctor and very religious, and he says he is a churchman.
In 1797 James George of Charleston, South Carolina, had
a slave who passed for a doctor among his people and, it
was supposed, practiced in that capacity about town. Ne
groes were serving as privateers and soldiers in the army
during the colonial wars and had learned so much about the
military contests for possession in the new world that the

11 The Journal of Negro History, I, 203.

12 Ibid., 203.

Slavery In Its Mild Form

English feared that close relations between the French in
the West and the slaves of the colonies along the coast might
eventually lead to an understanding between the French
and the slaves to the effect that the latter might cross the
mountains into French territory.

Probably the most striking evidences of the favorable
situation of the slaves during the eighteenth century is

333*-

THE PUNISHMENT OF A RUNAWAY SLAVE

their close relation with the poor whites, the most of
whom, at that time, were indentured servants. Reduced to
the same social status by common lot in servi- slaves and
tude, these two classes were in many cases, poor whites,
especially in the colonies around the Chesapeake Bay, about
equally treated. The slaves and the indentured servants
followed the same occupations, had the same privileges
and facilities, and experienced together the same pleasures.

46 The Negro In Our History

Living on this common plane, these two classes soon pro
ceeded to intermarry. In 1720 Richard Tilghman of Phila
delphia complained that his mulatto slave, Richard Molson,
had rim away in company with a white woman named
Mary, who, it was supposed, passed as his wife, and with a
white man named Garrett Choise, and Jane, his wife. A
mulatto servant man in Philadelphia named Isaac Crom
well ran away with an English servant woman named Anne
Greene, in 1745. Two years later, Ann Wainrite, a servant
woman of New Castle County, ran away, taking with her a
Negro woman. 13

These close relations between the blacks and the inden
tured servants later caused unusual dissatisfaction. Laws
were therefore enacted to prevent this interbreeding of the
races. In 1661 the preamble, of such a law in Maryland
Dissatis- said, "And forasmuch as divers freeborn

faction. English women, forgetful of their free condi

tion, and to the disgrace of our nation, do intermarry with
negro slaves, by which also divers suits may arise, touching
the issue of such women, and a great damage doth befall
the master of such Negroes, for the prevention whereof, for
deterring such free-born women from such shameful
matches, ~be it enacted: That whatsoever free-born women
shall intermarry with any slave, from and after the last
day of the present assembly shall serve the master of such
slave during the life of her husband ; and that all the issues
of such free-born women so married, shall be slaves as their
fathers were. And be it further enacted: That all the
issues of English, or other free-born women, that have al
ready married Negroes shall serve the master of their par
ents, till they be thirty years of age and no longer." 14

This, however, did not seem to prevent the miscegenation

is The Journal of Negro History, I, 206.

14 This social status is more extensively treated in The Journal of
Negro History, I, 206-216, and TT, 335-353.

Slavery In Its Mild Form 47

of the two races, for planters sometimes married white
women servants to Negroes in order to transform such ser
vants and their offspring into slaves. This happened in the
case of Irish Nell, a servant woman brought to Miscege-
Maryland by Lord Baltimore and sold later to nation,
a planter when the proprietor returned to England. The
proceedings instituted to obtain freedom for her offspring
by her Negro husband occupied the attention of the courts
of Maryland for a number of years, after which the peti
tion was finally granted. This procedure was especially
legislated against in 1681, by a measure which penalized
this custom then obtaining among the planters. The inter
breeding of the races, however, in spite of the laws against
it, continued. The public was burdened with so many
illegitimate mulatto children that it became necessary to
frame laws compelling the persons responsible to maintain
these unfortunate waifs, and making the Negroes or the
white persons concerned servants or slaves for a certain
number of years.

In Virginia it was necessary to take the same action.
Hugh Davis was whipped there in 1630 because he was
guilty of defiling his body by lying with a Negro. In 1622
the colony imposed fines for fornication with a Negro, but
did not restrict intermarriage until 1691. Ac- Efforts to
cording to this law, if any free English woman separate
should have a bastard child by a Negro or theraces -
mulatto, she should pay the sum of fifteen pounds sterling,
and in default of such payment she should be taken into
the possession of the church wardens and disposed of for
five years, and such illegitimate children should be bound
out as servants until they reached the age of thirty. If the
woman in question happened to be already in servitude, five
years were added to the term for which she was then bound.
This same law was further elaborated and extended by the
Virginia law of 1753. Here, however, it developed, just as

The Negro In Our History

in the case of Maryland, that these laws failed to remedy the
prevailing evil, and that State found itself with an unusually
large number of illegitimate mulatto children on its hands.
The officials hit upon the plan of binding them out, as was
done in the case of David James in 1727, one Malachi
on a plantation, and another free Negro in Norfolk
County in 1770.

ENTERTAINMENT

North Carolina also undertook to put an end to this
miscegenation. That colony provided in 1715 for the usual
laws restricting the intercourse of the two races. Clergy
men officiating at mixed marriages were penalized. These
precautions, however, failed to meet the requirements, and
the custom continued in North Carolina just as it had else
where, in spite of the fact that the law of 1741 legis
lated against "that abominable mixture and spurious issue,

Slavery In Its Mild Form 49

which hereafter may increase in this government by white
men and women intermarrying with Indians, Negroes, Mu-
lattoes or Mustees." It was enacted that if any man or
woman, being free, should intermarry with such persons, he
should be fined fifty pounds for the use of the parish, and
any white servant woman found guilty of such conduct
should have two years of service in addition to the time for
which she was already bound out.

This custom obtained in other parts where the Negroes
were found in smaller numbers, and because of the scarcity
of such population was checked with greater difficulty.
Massachusetts enacted a law against it in 1705. Pennsyl
vania took action in 1725. These laws were Difficulties
extended and made more rigid in the course of in separating
time, as the custom gave more and more dis- tneraces -
satisfaction. It was a long time, however, before it had
very much effect in New York, and still longer in Pennsyl
vania. This intermixture endured, and when in 1780,
during the struggle for the rights of man, this law was
repealed, mixed marriages became common. But when
the ardor of the revolutionary leaders had become much
diminished towards the close of the eighteenth century,
there set in a decided reaction against this miscegenation.
It was therefore extensively agitated throughout communi
ties where Negroes were found in large numbers, and vari
ous petitions came from those sections praying that inter
marriage of the whites and blacks be pro- Agitation
hibited. The first petition of consequence against
came from Green County in 1820. Such a ****.
marriage was the cause of a riot in Columbia in 1834, and
another of a riot in Philadelphia in 1849. In 1838 mem
bers of the Constitutional Convention engaged in a
heated discussion of the custom. The agitation, how
ever, was generally ineffective, for race admixture con
tinued, as is evidenced by the fact that one-fifth of

50 The Negro In Our History

the Negroes in the State in 1800 were mulattoes and
that in 1860 this proportion had increased to one-third.

Persons who professed seriously to consider the future
of slavery, therefore, saw that miscegenation, and especially
the concubinage of white men with their female slaves, in
troduced a mulatto race whose numbers would become dan-
The Danger of g erous ^ the affections of their white parents
miscegenation were permitted to render them free. The
Americans of the future would thereby be
come a race of mixed breeds rather than a white and a
black population. As the lust of white persons for those
of color was too strong to prevent race admixture, the
liberty of emancipating their mulatto offspring was re
stricted in the slave States, but the custom of selling them
became common.

These laws, therefore, eventually had their desired effect.
They were never intended to prevent the miscegenation of
the races, but to debase to a still lower status the offspring
of the blacks, who, in spite of public opinion, might under
Laws finally other circumstances intermarry with the poor
effective. white women. The more important objective,

too, was to leave the women of color without protection
against white men, who might use them for convenience,
while white women and black men would gradually grow
separate and distinct in their social relations. Although
thereafter the offspring of blacks and whites did not di
minish, instead of being gradually assimilated to the type of
the Caucasian they tended to constitute a peculiar class,
commonly called people of color, having a higher social
status than that of the blacks, but finally classified, with all
other persons of African blood, as Negroes.

CHAPTER IV

THE NEGRO AND THE RIGHTS OF MAN

AFTER the patriarchal form of slavery became engrafted
upon our civilization, the world-wide struggle for the rights
gf man worked a decided improvement in the condition of
the Negro. There had always been some opposition to
slavery from the very time it was first introduced. 1 The
founders of Pennsylvania undertook to rid ar i y
that colony of the perpetual servitude of the objections to
imported blacks by providing that the children
should become free at the age of fourteen. Efforts were at
first made to keep the institution out of Georgia, for the
reason that slaves were not vigorous enough to furnish de
fense for a frontier colony and would starve the poor
white laborers. William Usselinx proposed to prohibit its
introduction in the Swedish colonies, because African slave
labor would be less profitable than that of the Europeans.

More striking than these arguments were those of the
Puritans and Quakers, based on religious principles. The
religious element believed in slavery as connected in some
way with religion. Although not advocates of Religious
social equality for the blacks, the New Eng- bodies op-
land colonists believed in equality before God posec

i For a lengthy discussion see M. S. Locke s Antislavery in Amer
ica from the Introduction of the African Slaves to the Prohibition
of the Slave Trade, pp. 1-157; and C. G. Woodson s The Education
of the Negro Prior to 1861, Ch. III. Valuable information may be
obtained from The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I, pp. 49-68; Vol.
II, pp. 37-50, 83-95, 126-138.

52 The Negro In Our History

and, therefore, in the freedom of the body. Having the
same idea, Roger Williams protested against the enslave
ment of Pequot Indians in 1637. John Eliot and Cotton
Mather attacked the institution because of its abuses. In
1701 Justice Sewell presented his convincing argument
Puritans. against it in his essay entitled The Selling of

Joseph. The Puritans felt that slavery was the particular
offense that called down the avenging wrath of God, and not
wishing to make money of it, sought at first to restrict it to
lawful captives taken in just wars. They felt that it was
perilous to salvation in that the souls of the captives were
often neglected.

Among the Quakers, who unlike the Puritans, believed in
social equality as well as equality before God, the anti-
slavery movement met with more success. The Quakers
Quakers. noticed especially the cruel treatment of slaves

and the vices resulting from the system. They also endeav
ored to prove that the system was prejudicial to the interests
of all in that it prevented the poor whites from finding em
ployment, promoted idleness among the rich, cut off the
immigration of industrious Europeans, and precluded
the prosperity of whites already in the land.

These religious antislavery attacks, of course, were met
by various other arguments. Some said that Negroes were
slaves because of the curse of Canaan ; others because they
Proslavery were ignorant and wicked, and might, there-
^nfislavery fore re J oice over their opportunity to be led
arguments. to Christ through enslavement by the Chris
tian white race. Ralph Sandif ord inquired : "If these Ne
groes are slaves of slaves, whose slaves must their masters
be ? " 2 Elihu Coleman, replying to the argument that Ne
groes should be enslaved because of their wickedness, said :
"If that plea would do, I believe that they need not go far

2 Ralph Sandiford, Brief Examination, Ch. IV, p. 5.

The Negro and the Rights of Man ,53

for slaves as now they do. " 3 Seeing that the difference of
race was the main thing, the Quakers of Germantown, Penn
sylvania, said: "Now, though they are black, we cannot
conceive there is more liberty to have them slaves, than it is
to have other white ones. There is a saying that we shall do
to all men like as we will be done to ourselves, making no
difference of what generation, descent or color they are.
Here is liberty of conscience which is right and reasonable.
Here ought also to be liberty of the body. 4 This argu
ment was further elaborated by George Keith, John Hep
burn, William Burling and Benjamin Lay, all of whom
were men of influence in shaping the thought of the
Quakers.

This protest against slavery tended to become more and
more religious. Sandiford said: "Shall we go to Africa
for bread and lay the burden which appertains to our
bodily support on their shoulders? Is this washing one
another s feet, or living by the Gospel, or Ralph Sandi-
maintaining liberty and property? And to ford s attack,
live on another s labor by force and oppression, is this lov
ing mercy ? And to keep them slaves to us and our posterity
to all eternity, is this walking humbly with God?" 5 De
nouncing all slaveholders as sinners, Benjamin Lay said:
"Slaves are bound to them; so are they to the Benjaminlja y
Devil, and stronger, for as death loosens one,
it fastens the other in eternal Torment if not repented and
forsaken." He styled as a sort of devils that preach to hell
rather than to Heaven those ministers who, in leaving their
homes on Sunday to preach the "Gospel of glad tidings to
all men and liberty to the captives, directed the slaves to

a Elihu Coleman, Testimony, p. 17.

4 Germantown Friends Protest against Slavery in A. B. Hart s
American History Told by Contemporaries, Vol. II, section 102, pp.
291-293.

s Ralph Sandiford s Brief Examination,

54 The Negro In Our History

work to maintain them in pride, idleness, laziness and full
ness of bread, and sins of Sodom. 6

These arguments were not merely empty protests but
ideas translated into action by the Quakers. They pro
moted manumission by individual owners, and by 1713
Manumission worked out a definite scheme for the liberation
promoted. O f {} ie Africans and their restoration to their
native land, after having been prepared beforehand by in
struction in religion and the fundamentals of education.
Their protests against the purchase of Africans seriously
impaired the market for slaves in Philadelphia by 1715, and
decidedly checked the importation of slaves into Pennsyl
vania in 1743.

In later years the work of the Quakers became more
effective. Most of the slaves of Quakers in New England
and the Middle States were by moral suasion and religious
Results coercion manumitted by the time of the Amer-

among the lean Revolution and in the Southern States not
Quakers. longl a ter ^ cloge of the cen t ul y. No such

effective work was accomplished by any other body of
Christians. Among the Congregationalists there were heard
such protests as that of Samuel Hopkins of Newport and
that of Ezra Stiles, the President of Yale College. Samuel
Webster of Salisbury, and Nathaniel Niles and William
Gordon of Roxbury also attacked the evil, but their group
did not then make an organized effort for the extermination
of the system.

These efforts in later years became more successful, not
so much because of the forceful preachments of the sects
but on account of the new impetus given the movement by
forces set to work during the period following the French
After the and Indian War and culminating in the
French and spread of the nascent social doctrine which
Indian War. effected the American Revolution. The Brit-

Benjamin Lay, All Slave-Keepers Apostates, pp. 92-93.

The Negro and the Rights of Man 55

ish, as a result of the military triumph of Wolfe at Quebec
and Clive in India, had come into possession of vast terri
tory. Parliament, under the leadership of Grenville,
Townshend and North, hoped to incorporate these conquests
into the empire and compel them to defray the expenses in
cident to the execution of the plan by enforcing the Naviga
tion Acts, which had all but fallen into desuetude. Long
since accustomed to freedom from such restraint, the colo
nists began to seek in law and history facts with which they
disputed the right of Parliament to tax America, and on the
basis of which they set forth theories justifying the re
ligious, economic and political freedom of man.

During this period the colonists of the more democratic
order obtained first toleration and finally religious freedom
for their more popular sects. These were the Quakers,
Methodists, Baptists and Presbyterians. Most Toleration
of these at that time accepted the Negroes as and the
human beings and undertook to accord them Negro,
the privileges of men. For the Negroes this meant larger
opportunities for religious development and intellectual
progress, and finally, citizenship in the more liberal colonies,
when political leaders imbued with the idea of the un-
alienable rights of man joined these religious bodies in the
struggle for the freedom of the Negroes. These efforts of
religious groups, formerly operating independently along
parallel lines, finally culminated as one united movement
when political leaders, impelled by the spirit of universal
liberty, joined hands with theologians and humanitarians
to translate these theories into vigorous action.

In this struggle appeared some of the most forceful and
logical protagonists who united the religious protests with
that of the rights-of-man theory justifying universal liberty.
In 1767 Nathaniel Appleton insisted that the The Rights
slaves should not only "be treated with a re- of man.
spect agreeable" but that the institution should be abol-

56 The Negro In Our History

ished. If the West Indies, as some then contended, could
not be cultivated without slave labor, "let them sink then,"
said he, "for it is more honorable to seek a support by
begging than by theft." 7 Anthony Benezet, a French
Huguenot, who, in Philadelphia, became a member of the
Society of Friends because of their antagonism to slavery,
boldly attacked the institution and the slave trade as in
consistent with man s natural rights. John Woolman, one
of the fathers of the Friends, carried the rights-of-man
theory to its logical conclusion, insisting that liberty is the
right of all men, and that slaves being fellow-creatures of
their masters had a natural right to be free to discharge the
functions of citizenship.

Playing their part in the antislavery drama, the Presby
terians took the position that slavery was wrong because it
subjected the will of the slave to that of the master. The
Presbyterians. Baptists often attacked the institution with
such zeal that some of them became known as the Emanci
pating Baptists. The Methodist Episcopal Church, in
fluenced by John Wesley, declared at its conference in 1786 :
"We view it as contrary to the golden law of God and the
prophets, and the unalienable rights of mankind, as well as
every principle of the Revolution, to hold in deepest abase
ment, in a more abject slavery than is perhaps to be found
in any part of the world, except America, so many souls
that are capable of the image of God. 8 Strenuous efforts
were then made to excommunicate slaveholders and espe
cially those known as ministers. 9

This success, however, was not necessarily due to the

7 Nathaniel Appleton, Considerations on Slavery, p. 19.
s Lucius Matlock, History of American Slavery and Methodism.
p. 29.

a While the Quakers, however, discouraged the growth of the
institution among their people, and actually exterminated it, the
other sects kept the question in its agitated state until it finally
divided several of them before the Civil War.

The Negro and the Rights of Man 57

work of the clergy of the liberal sects. It was their effort
supported by these political leaders who applied the prin
ciples of the Declaration of Independence to Political
the Negro. The same theological doctrines leaders and
and political theories which impelled the colo- the Negro -
nists to rise against the home country to establish the free
government and religious liberty for which they left their
homes in Europe, caused them also to contend that it was
wrong for the whites to exploit the blacks. In many cases
the foremost advocates of the rights of the colonists were
also advocates of the riglit of the Negroes to be free, al
though there were many who contended that the principles
of the Declaration of Independence did not apply to the
Negroes, as slaves were not constituent members of our
society.

Finding it difficult to harmonize their holding men in
bondage with the assertion of the right of all men to be
free, however, the revolutionary leaders boldly met the
question. When James Otis was arguing the Meeting
case of the Writs of Assistance, showing the the issue,
immunity of the colonists from such violation of the laws
of nature, he did not forget the Negroes, who, he said,
should also be freed. It is little wonder, then, that John
Adams, who heard the argument, shuddered at the doc
trine taught and the consequences that might be derived
from such premises. Patrick Henry soon discovered that
his own denunciation of the clergy and other agents of roy
alty in America was broad enough to establish the right
of the Negro to freedom, and later expressed himself ac
cordingly.

Thomas Jefferson, the philosopher of the Revolution,
found among other grounds for the justification of the re
volt aganst Great Britain that the King had The position
promoted the slave trade. Jefferson incorpor- of Jefferson,
ated into his original draft of the Declaration of Independ-

58 The Negro In Our History

ence an indictment of George III to the effect that he had
violated the "most sacred rights of life and liberty of a
distant people, who never offended him, captivating them
into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable
death in their transportation thither." Though not so
outspoken, there stood with Jefferson almost all of the fath
ers of the American Revolution, even those in the South,
like Henry Laurens, George Wythe, George Mason, and
George Washington.

This new interest in the Negro during the American
Revolution secured to the race an appreciable share in de
fending the liberty of the country. 10 One cause of the
The new Boston Massacre was that a slave, out of love

freedom and of country, insulted a British officer. In the
the Negro. clagh itgelf r i spus Attucks, another Negro,

was one of the first four to shed blood in behalf of American
liberty. During the war numbers of Negroes, like Lemuel
Haynes, served as minute men and later as regulars in the
ranks, side by side with white men. Peter Salem distin
guished himself at Bunker Hill by killing Major Pitcairn,
a number of other Negroes heroically rescued Major Samuel
Lawrence, and Salem Poore of Colonel Frye s regiment
acquitted himself with such honor at the battle of Charles-
town that fourteen American officers commended him to
the Continental Congress.

The organization of Negro soldiers on a larger scale as
separate units soon followed after some opposition. The
reasons for timidity in this respect are various. Having
Negro units the idea that the Negroes were savages who
proposed. should not be permitted to take part in a

struggle between white men, Massachusetts protested
against the enlistment of Negroes. The Committee of

10 This military history is well treated in W. B. Hartgrove s The
Negro Soldier in the American Revolution, in The Journal of Negro
History, Vol. T, pp. 110-131.

The Negro and the Rights of Man 59

Safety, of which John Hancock and Joseph Ward were
members, had the opinion that as the contest then between
Great Britain and her colonies respected the liberties and
privileges of the latter, the admission of any persons but
freemen as soldiers would be inconsistent with the princi
ples supported and would reflect dishonor on the colony.
Although this action did not seemingly affect the enlistment
of free persons of color, Washington, in taking command of

THE DEATH OF CRISPUS ATTUCKS IN THE BOSTON MASSACRE

the army at Cambridge, prohibited the enlistment of all
Negroes. The matter was discussed in the Continental Con
gress and as a result Washington was instructed by that
body to discharge all Negroes, whether slave or free. When
the enlistment of Negroes came up again in the council of
the army, it was unanimously agreed to reject slaves and by
a large majority to refuse Negroes altogether. By these
instructions, Washington, as commander of the army, was
governed late in 1775.

60 The Negro In Our History

Many of the colonists who desired to avail themselves of
the support of the Negroes were afraid to set the example,
Fear of thinking that the British might outstrip them

arming in playing the same game and might arm

Negroes. ^ Q ^ ^ Q Indians and Negroes faster than the

colonies could. A few were of the opinion that the Negroes,
seizing the opportunity, might go over to Great Britain, as
was the case with the delegates from Georgia to the Conti
nental Congress, who had grave fears for the safety of the
South. They believed that if one thousand regular troops
should proclaim freedom to all Negroes, twenty thousand
of them would join the British in a fortnight.

As a matter of fact, they had good reason for so thinking.
When Lord Dunmore, Governor of Virginia, was driven
from the colony by the patriots, he summoned to his support
Negroes several hundred Negroes to assist him in re

armed by gaining his power, promising them freedom

t from their masters. The British contemplated

organizing a Negro regiment in Long Island. Sir Henry
Clinton proclaimed in 1779 that all Negroes in arms should
be purchased from their captors for the public service and
that every Negro who might desert the " Rebel Standard"
should have security to follow within the British lines any
occupation which he might think proper.

These plans, moreover, were in some parts actually car
ried out. The British made an effort to embody two Negro
regiments in North Carolina. Between 1775 and 1783 the
Negroes with State of SoutK Carolina lost 25,000 Negroes,
the British. w h o wen t over to the British. Probably three-
fourths of all the Negroes then in Georgia were lost to the
Americans. One-third of the men by whom Fort Cornwallis
was garrisoned at the siege of Augusta were Negroes loyal
to the English. A corps of fugitive slaves calling themselves
the King of England s soldiers harassed for several years

The Negro and the Rights of Man 61

the people living on the Savannah River, and there was
much fear that the rebuffed free Negroes of New England
would do the same for the colonists in their section.

It was necessary, therefore, for the leaders of the country
to recede from this position of refusing to enlist Negroes.
Washington within a few weeks revoked his order prohibit
ing their enlistment. The committee in the Negroes
Continental Congress considering the matter enlisted,
recommended the reenlistment of those Negroes who had

PETER SALEM AT BUNKER HILL

served faithfully, and Congress was disposed to leave the
matter to the commonwealths, not wishing to infringe upon
what they called States rights. Most men of foresight,
however, approved the recognition of the Negro as a sol
dier. James Madison suggested that the slaves be liber
ated and armed. Hamilton, like General Greene, urged
that slaves be given their freedom with the sword, to se
cure their fidelity, animate their courage, and influence
those remaining in bondage by an open door to their emanci-

62 The Negro In Our History

pation. Henry Laurens of South Carolina, then in eternal
dread of the disaffection of the slaves, said he would advance
Proposal of those wno are unjustly deprived of the rights

Henry O f mankind to a state which would be a proper

La/uTens.

gradation between abject slavery and perfect

liberty, and would have a corps of such men uniformly
clad and equipped to operate against the British. John
Laurens, the son of Henry Laurens, was permitted by the
Continental Congress to undertake such enlistment in South
Carolina, but when he brought his plan before the legis
lature he was defeated by a " triple-headed monster that
shed the baneful influence of avarice, prejudice and pusil
lanimity in all our assemblies. J n

In other parts of the country, however, the interest in
the Negro was such that they regained the former standing
in the army. Free Negroes enlisted in Virginia, and so

Negro soldiers many slaves deserted their masters for the
in Virginia. army that the g tate enacted in 1777 a law

providing that no Negro should be enlisted unless he had
a certificate of freedom. But later many Virginia slaves,
with the promise of freedom, were sent to the army as
substitutes for freemen, and to prevent masters of such
Negroes from reenslaving them, the State passed an act of
emancipation, proclaiming freedom to all who had enlisted
and served their term faithfully, and empowered them to
sue in forma pauperis, should they thereafter be unlawfully
held.

In his strait at Valley Forge, Washington was induced by
General Varnum to enlist a battalion of Negroes in Rhode
Solving the Island to fill his depleted ranks. The Khode
th b s em in Island assembly acceded to this request, giv
ing every effective slave the liberty to don the
uniform on the condition that upon his passing muster

11 Sparks, Writings of George Washington, VIII, 322, 323.

The Negro and the Rights of Man 63

he would become absolutely free and entitled to all the
wages, bounties, and encouragements given to any other
soldier. Connecticut undertook to raise a Negro regiment,
and New York in 1780, promising masters the usual bounty
land to purchase their slaves, proclaimed freedom to all
bondmen thus enlisting for three years. This sort of
action governed the enlistment of Negroes in New Hamp
shire, where it operated to
exterminate slavery. In
1781 Maryland resolved
to raise 750 Negroes to
be incorporated with the
other troops. Massachu
setts, at the suggestion
from Thomas Kench, con
sidered the question of
organizing in separate
battalions the Negroes
serving in the ranks
among white men, think
ing that in units by them
selves they would exhibit
a better esprit de corps
and that a larger number
would enlist; but as the
suggestion led to a heated
debate in the legislature and to blows in the coffee houses
of Boston, nothing definite was done.

In estimating the services rendered by the black troops
of the American Revolution, observers and officers were
loud in their praise. Speaking of the valor displayed by
the Rhode Island regiment, the Marquis de opinions as
Chastellux said : At the passage of the ferry to Negro
I met a detachment of the Rhode Island regi
ment, the same corps we had with us last summer, but they

LEMUEL HAYNES, a Negro soldier
in the American Revolution and
later a distinguished Congregational
preacher to white people in New
England

The Negro In Our History

BY His EXCELLENCY
GEORGE WASHINGTON, ESQ*

General and Commander In Chief of the Forces of the United
States of America.

TH K 8 K arc to CERTIFY that the Bearer hereof
-

in the -x -.* v V v&gt;,v? &gt;^V / .&lt; Regiment, having faithfully
ferved the United State* /*v- - &lt; *x ./ . ^ -:?

X -.-v / ; / ! r&gt; ulu j IM-JHJ, titliftfd fur the War unly, i*

hereby DIHHAHUFI} Irum the Aou-iirau Army, ,

O J V 1C N ai H K A h ( u 4 ft -r a 4 * iJir

By Hi & I-. *.&lt; it, $ t N ,

)

R Ii (, I s i ! H t n it, the |t,...k
(*{ the Regiment,

(. "/

1 111 , above ,. , V, ;". * **

h;u ltta iioiiorcd with thr,Ii y A J&gt; &lt;* J of M Ji k t J !-,*, \XV
Yctii faithful tH ivuc, .* / , /,.

111! , wuliin &lt;, M K 1 I I I (, , { J ilwl) H.,I avail
Fkarer ;u&gt; a Difcliarge, uuul tin- K.-fih. .u&gt;ii o( ti
treaty ol J*caccj previous t^ whi^h IJHH, anl ijuii}
noo tljcitof fhaJJ !M made, II* j* t&lt;; l w .oniuiticd a btiing oa
Furlough

G K O H O F W ,A ,s If f N O T tf

FACSIMILE OF AN HONORABLE DISCHARGE OF A NEGRO SOLDIER
FROM WASHINGTON S ARMY

The Negro and the Rights of Man 65

since have been recruited and clothed. The greater part
of them are Negroes or mulattoes ; but they are strong, ro
bust men and those I have seen had a very good appear
ance." Referring to the behavior of Negroes who fought
under General Greene, Lafayette said that in trying to
carry the commander s position the enemy repeated the
attempt three times and was often repulsed with great
bravery. One hundred and forty-four of the soldiers hold
ing this field were Negroes. Speaking of the troops who
took part in the battle of Long Island, Dr. Harris, a vet
eran, said : Had they been unfaithful or even given way
before the enemy, all would have been lost. Three times
in succession they were attacked with more desperate valor
and fury by well-trained disciplined troops and three times
did they successfully repel the assault, and thus preserved
our army from capture. Negro troops sacrificed themselves
to the last man in defending Colonel Greene in 1781 when
he was attacked at Point Bridge, New York. Referring to
the battle of Monmouth, Bancroft said, "Nor may history
omit to record that of the Revolutionary patriots who on
that day offered their lives for their country more than 700
black men fought side by side with the white. According
to Lecky, "the Negroes proved excellent soldiers in a hard-
fought battle that secured the retreat of Sullivan when
they three times drove back a large body of Hessians."

Some of these Negro soldiers emerged from the Revolu
tion as heroes. A Negro slave of South Carolina rendered
Governor Rutledge such valuable services in this war that
by special act of the legislature in 1783 his wife and chil
dren were liberated. Because of his unusual fortitude and
valor in battle, the State and the people of Georgia honored
Austin Dabney, a mulatto, who took a conspicuous part in
many skirmishes in the South. Fighting under Elijah
Clark, he was severely wounded by a bullet which in pass
ing through his body wounded him for life. He received

66 The Negro In Our History

a pension from the United States Government and was by
an act of the legislature of Georgia given a tract of land.
He subsequently accumulated considerable property, at
tained a position of usefulness among his white neighbors,
had the respect and confidence of high officials, and died
mourned by all.

The result of the increasing interest in the Negro was
that with the exception of South Carolina and Georgia, a
decided step forward in the extermination of slavery was
taken during the revolutionary epoch. The black codes were
iphe considerably moderated and laws facilitating

progress of manumission were passed in most of the
on colonies. Vermont, New Hampshire and Mas
sachusetts exterminated the institution by constitutional pro
vision; Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York
and Pennsylvania washed their hands of the stain by grad
ual emancipation acts; and the Continental Congress ex
cluded the evil from the Northwest Territory by the Ordi
nance of 1787. 12 So sanguine did the friends of universal
freedom become that they thought that slavery of itself
would later gradually pass away in Maryland, Virginia
and North Carolina.

To prepare the freedmen for this new opportunity,

12 Tliis prohibitory clause was:

There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said
territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crime, whereof the
party shall have been duly convicted: Provided always, That any
person escaping into the same, from whom labor may be lawfully
claimed in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be law
fully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor
or service as aforesaid.

Be it ordained by the authority aforesaid: That the resolutions
of the 23d of April, 1784, relative to the subject of this ordinance,
be, and the same are hereby, repealed, and declared null and void.

Done by the United States, in Congress assembled, the 13th day of
July in the year of our Lord 1787, and of their sovereignty and
independence the twelfth.

The Negro and the Rights of Man 67

schools were established in almost all large groups in towns
and cities. Efforts were made to apprentice such blacks
to trades, to place them in the higher pur- Preparation for
suits of labor, and to develop among them a emancipation,
class of small farmers who might be settled on unoccupied
lands west of the Alleghanies. In fact, this was the halcyon
day of the Negro race prior to its emancipation. Up to the
closing years of the American Revolution never had so
much been done in behalf of the blacks, never had there
been such opportunities for developing their power to
function as citizens. And so much of an impetus was then
given to the cause of the Negroes that despite the reac
tion following this epoch they retained their citizenship
intact in most parts of the North and even late in parts of
the South, as was the case in North Carolina, where the
Negroes voted until 1834.

The first impulse to general improvement of the Negroes
came through the new sects, which in this social upheaval
attained not only toleration but freedom. As there was
less ground for antagonism to the development Religious
of the Negroes in this direction, many of freedom,
them became socially equal with the white communicants,
and some Negro churchmen trained by pious whites
preached to audiences of the Caucasian race. Among these
was Jacob Bishop, who so impressed his co-workers that he
was at the close of the century made pastor of Jacob Bishop,
the first Baptist church (white) of Portsmouth, Virginia.
"William Lemon was at this time preaching to a white con
gregation at Pettsworth or Gloucester, Virginia. Some
recognition by whites was given during these years to
Henry Evans and Ralph Freeman of North Carolina, Harry
Hosier of Philadelphia, Black Harry of St. Eustatius, and
Lemuel Haynes, an intelligent Negro preacher to white
people in Connecticut. Andrew Bryan, contemporary with

The Negro In Our History

rnd Andrew
Bryan.

Jacob Bishop, preached occasionally to the whites, but de
voted his life to religious work among his own people. He
George Liele was tne successor to George Liele, who, under
the rule of the British in Savannah, had
founded the first Baptist church of that city.
He went with them to Jamaica, where he established the first
Baptist church in that colony. Bryan s task, however, was

not so easy as that of Liele.
The Americans, who suc
ceeded the British in au
thority at Savannah, per
secuted Bryan, whipping
him whenever he attempted
to preach. In the course
of time, however, he ob
tained the support of a
few kind-hearted whites,
who interceded in his be
half and secured for him
the permission to preach
without interruption. His
work, thereafter, made pro
gress, and extended to Au
gusta through the coopera
tion of Henry Francis and others.

Tn the circle of intellectual Negroes there stood out two
characters more prominent than these churchmen. These
were Phyllis Wheatley 13 and Benjamin Banneker. 14 Phyl
lis Wheatley was a slave in a Boston family that gave her
Phyllis every opportunity for improvement. After re-

Wheatley. ceiving instruction for a few years she mas
tered the fundamentals of educatio.il and made unusual

is R. R. Wright, Phyllis Wheatley.

14 Henry E. Baker, Benjamin Banneker in The Journal of Negro
History, Vol. Ill, pp. 99-118.

PHYLLIS WHEATLEY

The Negro and the Rights of Man

..*u* AK1&gt; Y1R.CH

MAN

advancement in the study of Latin and History. In the
very beginning of her career she exhibited the tendency
to write poetry. While present-day criticism would not
classify her as a poet, she was, in her time, a writer of such
interesting verse that she was brought into contact with
some of the best thinkers of that period. All of them were
not seriously impressed
with her actual contribu
tion to literature, but they
had to concede that she
had decidedly demon
strated that Negroes had
possibilities beyond that of
being the hewers of wood
and drawers of water for
another race.

Benjamin Banneker was
a character of more genius
than that with which many
of his white contemporaries
were endowed. Born in
Maryland, of a white wo
man and black father, he
was free, and at that time
exercised most of the privi
leges accorded white men. He was in a position to attend
an elementary school, and upon the moving of Benjamin
the well known Ellicotts to his neighborhood Banneker.
about the time he was reaching his majority, Ban
neker had made such advancement in science and mathe
matics that Mr. George Ellicott supplied him with books.
Studying these works, Banneker developed into one of the
most noted astronomers and mathematicians of his time.
He was the first of all Americans to make a clock, and
published one of the first series of almanacs brought out in

BENJAMIN BANNEKEB S ALMANAC

70 The Negro In Our History

the United States. These meritorious achievements made
him so prominent that he was sought and received by some
of the most prominent men of the United States. Among 1
these were James McHenry, once Vice-President of the
United States , and Thomas Jefferson. The latter was so
impressed with his worth that he secured for him a place
on the commission that surveyed and laid out Washington
in the District of Columbia.

CHAPTER V

REACTION

THE impetus given the uplift of the Negroes during the
struggle for the independence of the country was gradually
checked after 1783, when the States faced the problem of
readjustment. In the organization of governments the
States came to the conclusion that it was Emancipation
necessary to restrain men to maintain order checked,
and that they had to depart from some of the theories
on which the Revolution was fought. In the elimination of
the impracticable from the scheme of reconstruction after
making peace with Great Britain, the proposal for the
emancipation of the slaves was no longer generally heeded.
In those colonies where the Negroes were not found in large
numbers they were emancipated without much opposition
and some of them were made citizens of the new States.
But in those where the Negroes constituted a considerable
part of the population there followed such a reaction
against the elevation of the race to citizenship that much
of the work proposed to promote their welfare and to pro
vide for manumission was undone. 1

Certain States of the upper South did support the move-

iM. S. Locke, Antislavery in America, pp. 157-166; K. H. Porter,
A History of Suffrage in the United States, Chs. II and III. C. G.
Woodson, The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861, Chs. VI and
VII; and A. D. Adams, The Neglected Period of Antislavery in
America, passim.

The Negro In Our History

ment to abolish the slave trade, but for economic rather
than for sentimental reasons. The prohibition of the slave
Slave trade trade in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and
in the South. North Carolina did not necessarily show a
humanitarian trend. The reasons for such action were
largely economic. Their industry had reached a settled
state, and the influx of more slaves, they believed, would
lead to a decrease in the value of slaves, cause the supply of
Southern products to exceed the demand, drain the States
of money, and constitute a sinister influence on Negroes
already broken in. If imported in large numbers the trade

might force upon the com
munities a larger number
than could be supported,
and instead of promo
ting slavery might make
instant abolition neces
sary. Furthermore, the
successful rebellion of the
Negroes in Santo Do
mingo, led by Toussaint
L Ouverture and Desa-
lines, brought such a
dread of servile insurrec
tion among the slave
holders that many of them
opposed the continuation
of the, slave trade. And
even in the radically proslavery South, as in the case of
South Carolina, it was specifically provided that no slaves
should be imported from this disturbed area in the West
Indies. As a matter of fact, however, many refugees from
Refugees Hayti had come to the ports of Baltimore,

from Hayti. Norfolk, Charleston and New Orleans, and
they sowed seeds of discord from which came most of the

TOUSSAINT L OUVERTURE

Reaction 73

uprisings of Negroes during the first three decades of the
nineteenth century. 2

The Congress of the Confederation had very little to clo
with slavery, as it did not care to interfere with the rights
of the States. Slavery as a national question, however, ap
peared in the adoption of the Ordinance of 1787, providing
for the organization of the Northwest Terri- Slavery and
tory. The sixth clause of that document the Ordinance
provided that neither slavery nor involuntary c
servitude, except for punishment of crime, should be per
mitted in the said territory. This was enacted, of course,
prior to the adoption of the Constitution of the United
States and may seem to have no bearing thereon, but as its
legality was questioned on the ground that no such power
had been granted to the Continental Congress by the States
or by any provision in the Articles of Confederation, it
requires special attention. It is of importance to note that
it was defended on the untenable ground that it was a
treaty made by the States forming the Confederation rather
than an agreement of the States to be organized in this ter
ritory thereafter. The best which can be said for it, how
ever, is that it was merely a legislative act of Congress. 3
The convention of 1787 desired to take very little interest
in the antislavery movement in the organization of the
Federal Government. Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut and
Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts thought the The Conven-
question of slavery should be settled by the tion of 1787 -
States themselves. As this question came more prominently

2 These uprisings are sot forth in Joshua Coffin s An Account of the
Principal Slave Insurrections. See also Edwin V. Morgan s Slavery
in New York (American Historical Association Report, 1895), pp.
029-673; and E. B. Greene s Provincial America (The American
Nation ) , Vol. VI, p. 240.

3 All of these aspects of the Ordinance of 1787 are thoroughly dis
cussed in J. P. Dunn s Indiana ; A Redemption from Slavery, Ch. VI;
and in Clias. Thomas Hickok s The Negro in Ohio, chapter on the
Ordinance of 1787.

The Negro In Our History

before this body called to frame the Constitution of the
United States, however, it had to be considered more seri
ously, to determine a method of returning fugitive slaves,
the prohibition of the slave trade, and the apportionment of

representation. When the
South wanted the Negroes
to be counted to secure
larger representation on
the population basis, al
though it did not want
thus to count the blacks in
apportioning federal taxes,
some sharp debate ensued,
but the northern antislav-
ery delegates were not so
much attached to the cause
of universal freedom as to
advocate force their op i n i ons on the

proslavery group and thus
lose their support in organizing a more stable form of gov
ernment. 4 They finally compromised by providing for rep
resentation of the States by two Senators from each, and for
the representation of the people in the House by counting
all whites and five Negroes as three whites, and by further
providing for the continuation of the slave trade until 1808,
when it should be prohibited, and for a fugitive slave law
to secure slaveholders in the possession of their peculiar
property.

Immediately after the Federal Government was organized
there seemed to be a tendency to ignore the claims of the
Negro. In 1789 the Quakers at their annual meeting in
The Negro a Philadelphia and New York adopted certain
negligible memorials praying the attention of Congress
in adopting measures for the abolition of the

BENJAMIN

factor.

* The Journal of Negro History, Vol. Ill, pp. 381-434.

Reaction 75

slave trade and, in particular, in restraining vessels from
being entered and cleared out for the purpose of that trade.
There came also a memorial to the same effect from the
Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery, bearing
the signature of its president, Benjamin Franklin. This
led to much discussion of the slavery question, but the me
morials were by a vote of 43 to 11 referred to a special com
mittee which reported March 5, 1790. On the 8th the re
port was referred to the Committee of the Whole where it
was debated a week. Several amendments were proposed
and given consideration in the House. Finally the reports
of the special committee and of the committee of the whole
house were by a vote of 29 to 25 ordered to be printed in
the Journal and to lie on the table. The principle of non
interference with slavery set forth in this report determined
for a number of years the reactionary attitude of Congress
with respect to slavery. 5

The report of the Special Committee was: The committee to
whom were referred sundry memorials from the People called
Quakers; and also a memorial from the Pennsylvania Society for
promoting the Abolition of Slavery, submit the following report:

That, from the nature of the matters contained in those memorials/
they were induced to examine the powers vested in Congress, under
the present Constitution, relating to the abolition of slavery, and
are clearly of opinion,

First, That the General Government is expressly restrained from
prohibiting the importation of such persons "as any of the States
now existing shall think proper to admit, until the year one
thousand eight hundred and eight."

Secondly, That Congress, by a fair construction of the Constitu
tion are equally restrained from interfering in the emancipation of
slaves, who already are, or who may, within the period mentioned
be imported into, or born within any of the said States.

Thirdly, That Congress have no authority to interfere in the
internal regulations of particular States, relative to the instruction
of slaves in the principles of morality and religion; to their com
fortable clothing; accommodations, and subsistence; to the regula
tion of their marriages, and the prevention of the violation of the
rights thereof, or to the separation of children from their parents;
to a comfortable provision in cases of sickness, age, or infirmity;
or to the seizure, transportation, or sale of free negroes; but have
the fullest confidence in the wisdom and humanity of the Legislatures

76 The Negro In Our History

Congress refused also to intervene in behalf of certain
manumitted Negroes of North Carolina, who after having
been given their liberty by the Quakers were again reduced
to slavery. The only action of this sort taken by Congress
Non-inter- during its early operation was to pass the Fu-
ventionby gitive Slave Law of 1793. This measure pro-
Congress, vided that a master might seize his absconding
slave taking refuge in another State, carry him before any
magistrate and secure from that functionary authority to
return the slave. Congress refused on this occasion to pro
vide any safeguards to prevent the enslavement of free Ne
groes. No sympathy could then be expected from the North,
for while that section considered the institution an evil, it
had not in the least increased its love for the Negro, and
evidences of unrest among Negroes did not make conditions
more favorable. The North did not want the Negroes, and
those southerners who had advocated their emancipation

of the several States, that they will revise their laws from time to
time, when necessary, and promote the objects mentioned in the
memorials, and every other measure that may tend to the happiness
of slaves.

Fourthly, That, nevertheless, Congress have authority, if they
shall think it necessary, to lay at any time a tax or duty, not
exceeding ten dollars for each person of any description, the importa
tion of whom shall be by any of the States admitted as aforesaid.

Fifthly, That Congress have authority to interdict, or (so far as
it is or may be carried on by citizens of the United States, for
supplying foreigners) to regulate the African trade, and to make
provision for the humane treatment of Slaves, in all cases while on
their passage to the United States, or to foreign ports, as far as
it respects the citizens of the United States.

Sixthly, That Congress have also authority to prohibit foreigners
from fitting out vessels, in any port of the United States, for trans
portation of persons from Africa to any foreign port.

Seventhly, That the memorialists be informed, that in all cases
to which the authority of Congress extends, they will exercise it for
the humane objects of the memorialists, so far as they can be
promoted on the principles of justice, humanity, and good policy.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE HOUSE

The Committee of the Whole House, to whom was committed the
report of the committee on the memorials of the People called Quak-

Reaction 77

were confronted with the question as to what should be
done with them when freed.

The reaction in the North was generally manifested in
the change of the attitude of the whites toward the blacks,
who had during the struggle for the rights of man become
connected with schools and churches throughout the sec
tion. It was therefore necessary for Negroes to establish
independent churches of their own like those Reaction in
founded by Andrew Bryan in Georgia and the cllurcn -
Joseph Willis in Mississippi. Bearing it grievously that the
people of color were suffering from a militant prejudice in
the Methodist church, Richard Allen and James Varick es
tablished independent organizations out of which developed
the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the African

era, and of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition
of Slavery, report the following amendments:

Strike out the first clause, together with the recital thereto, and
in lieu thereof insert, "That the migration or importation of such
persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to
admit, cannot be prohibited by Congress, prior to the year one
thousand eight hundred and eight."

Strike out the second and third clauses, and in lieu thereof insert,
"That Congress have no authority to interfere in the emancipation
of slaves, or in the treatment of them within any of the States; it
remaining with the several States alone to provide any regulations
therein, which humanity and true policy may require."

Strike out the fourth and fifth clauses, and in lieu thereof insert,
"That Congress have authority to restrain the citizens of the United
States from carrying on the African trade, for the purpose of supply
ing foreigners with slaves, and of providing by proper regulations for
the humane treatment, during their passage, of slaves imported by
the said citizens into the States admitting such importation."

Strike out the seventh clause.

Ordered, that the said report of the Committee of the Whole House
do lie on the table.

See Text of both reports in the House Journal, 1st Cong., 2d Sess. ;
the report of the special committee is also in the Annals of Congress,
1st Cong., II, 1414, 1415, and in Amer. State Papers, Miscellaneous,
I, 12. Full reports of discussions are in the Annals; condensed in
Benton s Abridgment, I. See also von Hoist s United States, I, 89-
94; Parton s Franklin, II, 606-614; Wilson s Rise and Fall of the
Slave Power, I, 61-67.

The Negro In Our History

Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. 6 In the same manner the
opportunities for Negroes to acquire education became less
frequent, as men tended to veer around to the exploitation
conception of the Negro as a being desirable only so far as
he answered some servile purpose of the white man. In
education, however, the Negroes were too generally pro
scribed and they were eco
nomically too weak for in
dependent action.

The treatment of the
question of slavery in
the purchase of Louisiana
subsequently caused some
debate when it was pro
vided that in acquiring
The the territory

Louisiana of Louisiana
from France

the privileges and immun
ities enjoyed by those cit
izens under the govern
ment of the French would
be guaranteed by the
United States. This led
to some future constitu
tional questions, for the reason that since Louisiana was
slaveholding prior to the purchase, the institution was there
by perpetuated in that territory. On the other hand, many
of the Negroes of that territory belonged to the body of
citizens exercising the same rights as the whites. When,
a few years thereafter, Louisiana followed in the wake
of the other reactionary States of the South and under
took to restrict the privileges of the free Negroes, it
was contended that the action of the State conflicted with

KICHARD ALLEN, the founder of the
A. M. E. Church

C. G. Woodson, The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861, p. 86.

Reaction 79

this treaty guaranteeing those persons who were citizens
at the time of the purchase the full enjoyment of the privi
leges which they had under the French regime. On the
occasion of the enforcement of a law of that State depriv
ing certain free Negroes of the right to attend school, this
question was brought up in Mobile, Alabama, which at
the time of the purchase belonged to the Louisiana terri
tory. By special ordinance of the city council, however,
these citizens were exempted from the operations of this
law.

The great factors in bringing about the reaction, how
ever, were primarily economic. Dur
ing the second half of the nineteenth
century, inventors, beginning with
Watt, who built the first steam en
gine, brought out such mechanical
appliances as the wool-combing ma
chine, the spinning jenny, the power-
loom, and finally Whitney s famous
cotton gin. These revolutionized in
dustries in the modern world, and in AN EABLY COTTON Gix
facilitating the making of cloth in
creased the demand for cotton, which led to the plantation
system requiring the large increase in the importation of
slaves. The cotton gin, a machine of revolving cylinders,
one for tearing the lint from the seeds and another
arranged to remove the lint from the first cylinder, sim
plified the process of seeding cotton, and in releasing
labor for production multiplied its output in a few
years. Cotton cloth was thereby cheapened and the de
mand for it so extensively increased that the South
became a most inviting field in which was rooted one
of the greatest industries of the world. Before the end
of the second decade of the nineteenth century the States
of the lower South became inalterably attached to slavery

80 The Negro In Our History

as an economic advantage in supplying the cheap labor it
required and began to denounce those who persisted in dub
bing it an evil.

With this increase in the demand for slaves there came
numerous petitions for the reopening of the African slave
trade in the lower South. The Northern and Middle States
Increase in early prohibited the slave traffic, holding it
the demand as a grievance against George III that they
were not permitted to do so earlier. Maryland
prohibited it in 1783. North Carolina checked it by a
rather high import duty in 1789, and South Carolina pro
scribed it by law for sixteen years. Georgia alone took no
action except to provide for its own security in prohibiting
the importation of insurrectionary slaves from the West
Indies, the Bahamas and Florida, and to require free
Negroes to furnish certificates of their industry and honesty.

An early effort was made to repeal the prohibitory pro
vision against the traffic in South Carolina, but it was de
feated. Those interested in the trade proceeded to smuggle
slaves along the coast, and the efforts to enforce the pro
hibitory law were without success. Finally, in 1805, after
much persistence, the slave-traders in that State carried
their point, putting through the bill to remove all African
restrictions but continuing the exclusion of Negroes from
the West Indies and slaves from other States failing to have
certificates of good character.

The action of South Carolina was interpreted as opening
the door for all of the atrocities formerly practiced by the
slave traders. North Carolina, New Hampshire, Vermont,
The Slave Maryland and Tennessee, therefore, requested
trade their Congressmen to make an effort to have

objectionable. the Constitution of the Unit ed States so

amended as to prohibit the importation of Negroes from
Africa and the West Indies. Congress refused to act in this

Reaction 81

case, not only because it had become reactionary, but for the
reason that the time provided by the Constitution for the
abolition of the slave trade would arrive in 1808. At the
next session of Congress bills to prohibit the trade were
introduced, but no action was taken.

In 1806 Jefferson took up the question in his annual mes
sage, urging Congress to interpose its authority to withdraw
citizens of the United States from all further participation
in those violations of human rights which had Jefferson on
been "so long continued on the unoffending abolition,
inhabitants of Africa. 7 7 Senator Bradley of Vermont
promptly introduced a bill with the provisions that in
terstate slave trade along the coast should be prohibited
after the close of the year 1807 and that importation of
slaves should be a felony punishable by death. 8 In the
House, where proslavery Congressmen managed the fram
ing of the bill, it prohibited importation, provided fines
and forfeiture of the slaves from abroad on board such
vessels, and for the sale at public auction of slaves thus
smuggled in. As it was evident that this bill would not
prevent the enslavement of the blacks concerned, Mr. Sloan
of New Jersey proposed to amend this bill so as to free the
slaves thus forfeited. This proposition to turn loose in the
South Negroes just from Africa evoked from Early, of
Georgia, the prophecy of the prompt extermination of such
Negroes in the Southern States. But speaking for his peo
ple, Smilie of Pennsylvania felt that he could not tolerate
the idea of making the Federal Government a dealer in
slaves. Such an act, thought he, would be unconstitutional.
This provision was, after some excitement, stricken out.

An effort was then made to substitute imprisonment for

7 Annals of Congress, 1806-1807, p. 14.

s The debate on the prohibition of the slave trade is treated in
W. E. B. DuBois s Suppression of the African Slave Trade.

82 The Xegro In Our History

the death penalty, only to cause much more confusion.
After more exciting discussion the House laid aside its bill
Efforts in for tlie one from tlie Senate, from which it
behalf of promptly eliminated the death, penalty and

slave trade. p rov ided a penalty of imprisonment of not
less than five nor more than ten years. The prohibition
as to participation in coastal slave trade was eliminated also.
The bill was then passed and sent back to the Senate. The
Senate accepted this with the modification that the coastal
trade provision be applied only to vessels of less than forty
tons. There was still some opposition from Early of Geor
gia because he thought the bill in that form futile for the
prevention of smuggling from Florida. John Randolph be
lieved it interfered with a man s right of private property.
The bill as passed penalized with imprisonment the importa
tion of slaves from abroad, prohibited the slave trade
along the coast in vessels of less than forty tons, required
of larger vessels conformity to certain stipulated regula
tions, and placed smuggled slaves when seized at the disposal
of the State where they might be landed.

This law, of course, was a victory for the lower South,
then demanding an increase in the slave labor supply.
With these evasive provisions favoring State control, the
Victory for measure was never effective and the illicit
the proslavery trade flourished throughout the South with-
group * out much interference. In fact, it was im

possible to secure a conviction under this law until the Civil
War, so effective had been public opinion in the South
against the prohibition of the trade. This was the culmina
tion of the reaction against the Negro in Congress. For
economic reasons the South had pitted itself against the
Constitution and, that Negroes might be further exploited
by the whites, finally secured a majority sufficiently lacking
in moral courage to evade carrying out the spirit of the
fundamental law.

Reaction

The untoward condition of the Negro in the South re
sulted, too, from the unusually rapid spread of cotton
culture and the extension of slavery in the uplands of the
South, where it had been considered imprac- Spread of
ticable. The people of the frontier section, cotton culture,
who had early constituted the opposition to the aristocratic
pretensions of the slaveholders near the coast, gradually be
came indoctrinated in the tenets of the slaveholding aris
tocracy and began to develop the same thought as to politics

ANOTHER SORT OF SLAVERY

and religion as obtained near the coast. In the seaboard
States, the interior of which lay among rugged hills or be
yond seemingly insurmountable mountains, the hopes of
democracy lingered longer because of the difficulty experi
enced in extending slavery beyond these barriers ; but even
these parts had to yield ground to the growing evil, despite

84 The Negro In Our History

the warning given by statesmen in the prolonged debate re
sulting in the admission of Missouri as a slave State. 9

In the same way the introduction of the culture of sugar
in Louisiana accelerated the trade in that territory. By
an additional act of Congress dealing with the prohibition
The sugar of the slave trade in that State a loophole was
industry. j e f t j n ^he j aw so ^hat ft was construed to

permit the importation of slaves from the other parts of
the United States. Slave traders in some of the border
States where the worn-out soil made the system unprofitable,
moreover, supplied the Louisiana Territory in spite of
restrictions to the contrary. They evaded the laws by pur
chasing slaves ostensibly for employment at home but only
to be sold later in Louisiana after a brief stay to comply
with the letter of the legal requirements. The result was
an influx of speculators buying sugar land and bringing in
slaves, until before the nineteenth century was far advanced
the increasing number of estates reported and their large
production placed the -culture of sugar in the front rank
of the industries of the South.

In this situation, then, the South soon reached the posi
tion that slavery is not an evil and by no means a sin, and
that the only use to be made of a Negro is to impress him
into the service of the white man. No care was taken of
The situation the blacks as of persons to be elevated, for
in the South. ^ e y were to be beasts of burden. Negro
women were often worked too hard to bear children, and it
mattered not if they did not, since it was deemed less ex
pensive to drive an imported slave to death during a few
years and buy another in his place, than to undertake to
increase his efficiency by methods of improvement. They
were herded in pens like cattle, sold to do hard labor from
the rising to the setting of the sun, given quarters in habi-

9 See the discourse of John Quincy Adams in the Appendix.

Reaction 85

tations no better than the stables for animals, and fed upon
the coarsest food known to be given to human beings. To
prevent their escape, police control was effected by a patrol
system which governed their going and coming so as to
prevent them from assembling for help or from securing
assistance or advice from sympathetic white friends and
free Negroes.

CHAPTER VI

A DECLINING ANTISLAVERY MOVEMENT

AGAINST this system, which held in perpetual servitude
millions of blacks, and prevented the elevation of the thou
sands of free persons of color to the dignity of citizenship,
persons of sympathetic tendencies had for years persistently
Antislavery protested. 1 There was some antislavery sen-
groups, timent from the very beginning of the intro
duction of slavery into the United States. Here and there
in the colonies there were persons who seriously objected
to the rigor to which the slaves were subjected in the de
velopment of the industries of the New World. These first
protests, however, were largely on religious grounds, for the
reason that the exploiting methods gave the Negroes no
time for mental development or religious experience. Men
who had at first accepted slavery as a means of bringing
these heathen into a Christian land where they might un
dergo conversion to the faith, bore it grievously that selfish
masters ignored the right of the Negroes to be enlightened.

Protests appeared more frequently during the eighteenth
century, when religious freedom and liberty developed to
the extent that the blacks were given some consideration.
This antislavery sentiment, however, was not due pri-
Effect on niarily to cruel treatment of the slaves. In
the Negro s fact, the first Negro slaves were largely house
servants, enjoying the treatment usually re-

1 The early antislavery movement has been well treated in M. S.
Locke s Antislavery in America from the Introduction of the African
Slaves to the Prohibition of the Slave Trade, in Alice D. Adams s
Xeglected Period of Antislavery in America, and in the annual
reports of The American Convention of Abolition Societies.

A Declining Antislavery Movement 87

ceived among the ancient patriarchs. Some of them were
servants indentured for a certain period, and even the
slaves during the eighteenth century had many opportuni
ties for obtaining freedom. The free Negroes had a social
status of equality with that of the poor whites.

A bold attack on slavery, therefore, did not follow, as
most of the objections raised during the eighteenth century
were economic rather than sentimental, considering slavery
prejudicial not only to the interests of the Mild attack
slaves themselves but to those of a country on slavery,
desirous of economic betterment. As already observed,
however, the struggle for the rights of man was productive
of such a healthy sentiment in behalf of universal liberty
that almost all of the fathers of ,the American Revolution
favored a gradual extermination of the institution of slavery
on the grounds that the Negroes had a natural right to be
free. Antislavery societies were organized in the North
and South immediately after the Revolution to secure to the
slaves the fruits of the victory in behalf of the rights of
man. To unify the efforts of these organiza- Abolition
tions a national body, the American Conven- societies,
tion of Abolition Societies, was formed to meet annually.
A study of the records of these societies shows that the
membership consisted largely of Quakers and such other
enlightened persons of the more liberal connections as were
disposed to attack the institution. These organizations
were intended to mold public opinion in favor of the en
slaved Africans with a view to exterminating slavery.

They did not contemplate instant abolition. The ma
chinery for promoting the uplift of the Negroes, as further
stated by them, had to do with methods of gradual eman
cipation. According to their scheme, they Gradual
raised funds to purchase slaves, encouraged emancipation,
their emancipation, and provided for prospective freedmen
opportunities for mental development and religious instruc-

88 The Negro In Our History

tion that they might properly function in society on becom
ing citizens. These bodies maintained, moreover, a sort of
vocational guidance committee in each locality to look out
for apprenticing Negroes to trades and to find employment
for them in the various fields when they had developed into
efficient mechanics.

The strongest influence against slavery which had hither
to developed, as already observed, came from the Quakers.
After ridding themselves of slavery, they were, during the
first decade of the nineteenth century, working strenuously
to abolish the institution in other parts. They had, how-
Antislavery " ever, used passive means in reaching their
Quakers. ends, and for that reason had not gained very

much ground ; but they had done effective work in Virginia
and North Carolina, and when they could not operate there
as they desired they sent their slaves and others to the
Northwest Territory where they had a new opportunity. It
is doubtless due to their influence in North Carolina that a
distinguished man like Judge William Gaston could call
on the State to extirpate slavery. They, no doubt, had
much to do with the fact that an appeal to abolish slavery
in the North Carolina General Assembly failed only by the
casting vote of the speaker, and that the institution was
strongly attacked in the Virginia Convention in 1829-30,
and in the legislature the following year. 2

The inevitable effect of the reaction was sectionalism.
As a more militant antislavery movement developed from
the industrial revolution, which led to the extension of
The results *he plantation system, requiring more slaves,
of the the South became gradually estranged from

the North. The open violations of the act

2C. G. Woodson, Education of the Negro Prior to 1861; S. B.
Weeks, Southern Quakers and Slavery, and R. R. Wright, Negro
Rural Communities in The Southern Workman, Vol. XXXVII, pp.
158-166.

A Declining Antislavery Movement 89

prohibiting the African slave trade and the impetus given
the domestic traffic to supply these plantations with Ne
groes, led to the bold attack on the institution during the
first quarter of the nineteenth century. The cotton gin, al
though invented as early as 1793, had just then begun to do
its work. During the first antislavery period there were no
violent protests, as the workers concerned contented them
selves with making an occasional speech or writing for a
newspaper an article inveighing against the institution and
setting forth plans for exterminating the evil. A consider
able portion of the abolition literature which influenced
public opinion appeared in the Genius of Universal Emanci
pation, published by Benjamin Lundy. Through this organ
the sentiments of a large number of antislavery people liv
ing in the Appalachian highland found expression. They
were descendants of the Germans and Scotch-Irish immi
grants who came to this country to realize their ideals of re
ligion and government, differing widely from those of the
aristocratic planters who maintained a slavocracy near the
coast. A few of these settlers of the uplands were gradually
indoctrinated in the tenets of slavery in the proportion that
the institution extended towards the mountains, but a
large number of them continued even until the Civil War to
work for the destruction of the institution. Out of this
group developed a number of manumission societies in
North Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky. These organiza
tions manifested the first radicalism the country had up to
that time experienced.

Here we see the tendency not only to regard the institu
tion of slavery as an economic evil but to consider it as a
sin of which the Christian people should be ashamed. In
1810 Louis Duprey informed professing Slavery an
Christians that the great transgressions of economic evil,
slave commonwealths would lead to overwhelming judg
ments of God. Thinking of the evil of slavery, Thomas

The Negro In Our History

Jefferson, an uplander, said : "I tremble for my country
when I reflect that God is just." David Barrow, of Ken
tucky, denounced in a pamphlet the inconsistency in the
use of religious formulas in connection with the bequests
of slaves, and advocated immediate emancipation. About
the same time, John D. Paxton, a preacher in Kentucky
and Virginia, believed in the "moral evil of slavery and the
duty of Christians to aid slaves and free them." Daniel

Raymond of Maryland
branded slavery as a
"foul stain on our na
tional escutcheon, a can
ker which is corroding
the moral and political
vitals of our country."
Declaring slave traffic a
curse to the master, John
Randolph, of Virginia,
said in Congress in 1816,
"Do as you would be
done by. Every man
who leaves that great high
road will have the chalice
which he himself has
poisoned the chalice of
justice, even-handed jus
tice put to his own lips
by the God of nature, who does not require abolition so
cieties to carry his purpose into execution."

The spirit of antislavery, however, was declining in the
South throughout the first half century of the republic.
Antislavery Free discussion of slavery was extended by
cause in the ardent debate over the Missouri question

the South. from 1819 t() 1821 In thig con test the pro-
slavery and antislavery forces for the first time nationally

THOMAS JEFFERSON, an antislavery
reformer

A Declining Antislavery Movement 91

clashed. The question then was whether or not slave
territory should be extended. By that time it was evident
that the South was preparing to support the institution,
whereas the North, in defense of free labor, had uncon
sciously become radically opposed to the extension of
slavery. In so expressing itself in reply to the defense of
the institution, the whole country became alarmed and the
thinking public was impressed thereby with the idea that
the country was then face to face with a problem requiring
serious consideration. The United States had by this time
developed a feeling of nationalism.

These protests, however, were scattered and they had
little effect, for the abolition movement gradually became
a sectional one. The antislavery societies which held wide
sway until about the beginning of the nine- The decline of
teenth century lost ground from year to year, the antislav-
The lower South early exterminated them, er y movem *nt.
and, in the border States, where they had had extensive in
fluence, they soon claimed only a few adherents. In 1827
there was one such society in Connecticut, none in Delaware,
two in the District of Columbia, twelve in Illinois, eight in
Kentucky, eleven in Maryland, two in Massachusetts, one
in New York, fifty in North Carolina, four in Ohio, sixteen
in Pennsylvania, one in Khode Island, twenty-five in Ten
nessee, eight in Virginia. Less than a decade later almost
all southern States in which most of these societies had
developed ceased to support them, and the American Con
vention became largely a northern organization, and de
cidedly so, when it fell under the influence of the radicals.

As a sequel and a cause of the reaction came the bold at
tempts of the Negroes at insurrection. 3 Unwilling to un
dergo the persecutions entailed by this change of slavery
from a patriarchial to an economic system, a number of

3 For additional information as to the rising of slaves see Joshua
Coffin s Slave Insurrections,

The Negro In Our History

Negroes endeavored to secure relief by refreshing the tree
of liberty with the blood of their oppressors. The chief
Slave source of these uprisings came from refugees

insurrections, brought to this country from Santo Domingo
in 1793 and from certain free Negroes encouraged to extend

a helping hand to
their enslaved breth
ren. The first ef
fort of consequence
was Gabriel s Insur
rection in Virginia
in the year 1800. It
had been so deliber
ately planned that
it was thought that
white men were con
cerned with it, but
an investigation, ac
cording to James
Monroe, showed that
there was no ground
for such a con
clusion. It was
brought out, how
ever, that these Ne
groes, through channels of information, had taken over
the revolutionary ideas of France and were beginning to
use force to secure to themselves those privileges prized
by the people in that country.

The insurrectionary movement was impeded but could
not be easily stopped. At Camden in 1816, and some years
later at Tarboro, Newberne and Hillsboro, North Caro
lina, there developed other such plots of less conse-
At Camden. quence. For some years these outbreaks were
frequent around Baltimore, Norfolk, Petersburg and New

THE NEGRO CALLS A HALT

A Declining Ant isla very Movement 93

Orleans. In 1822, Charleston, South Carolina, however,
was the scene of a better planned effort to effect the lib
eration of the slaves by organizing them to assassinate
their masters. The leading spirit was one Denmark
Denmark Vesey, an educated Negro of Santo Vesey.
Domingo, from which he had brought his new ideas as to
freedom. It was observed that these Negroes in Charleston
had been reading the slavery debate of the Missouri Com
promise and were emboldened by the attacks on the institu
tion to effect its extermination. In all of these cases the
plans of the Negroes were detected in time to foil them, and
the conspirators were promptly executed in such a bar
barous way as to serve as a striking example of the fate
awaiting those who, refused to be deterred from such efforts.

An extensive scheme for an insurrection, however, came
in 1828 from David Walker of Massachusetts, who, in a
systematic address to the slaves throughout the country,
appealed to them to rise against their masters. Walker
said: "For although the destruction of the r&gt; av id
oppressors God may not effect by the op- Walker s
pressed, yet the Lord our God will bring other
destruction upon them, for not unfrequently will he cause
them to rise up one against the other, to be split, divided,
and to oppress each other, and sometimes to open hostilities
with sword in hand. 4

But the most exciting of all of these disturbances did not
come until 1831, when Nat Turner, a Negro insurgent of
Southampton County, Virginia, feeling that he was or
dained of God to liberate his people, organized Nat Turner s
a number of daring blacks and proceeded ** suicie
from plantation to plantation murdering their masters.
Having obtained great influence over the minds of his fol
lowers, he was in a position to interest a much larger

* David Walker s Appeal, p. 5.

The Negro In Our History

number of them than other Negroes who had undertaken
to incite their fellows to self-assertion. With the aid of six
desperate companions, who finally increased tenfold, he
killed sixty whites. After a few days of slaughter and local
warfare, Turner and his followers were finally driven into
the swamps by the State militia and United States troops.
On the first day over a hundred Negroes were killed. After

a few days of resistance
they were overpowered and
imprisoned. Twelve Ne
groes were promptly con
victed and expatriated, but
Nat Turner and twenty
of his accomplices were
hanged. An effort was
made to connect William
Lloyd Garrison and David
Walker with this rising,
but no evidence to this ef
fect could be found. Gar
rison disclaimed any con
nection with the insurrec
tion. The thought then
that slaves themselves
could cause such a disturb
ance struck terror to the very heart of the South, which
thereafter lived in eternal dread of servile insurrection.

This was sufficient to convince the South that if economic
slavery was to be successful, the one thing needful was
to close up the avenues of information to the Negroes. The
Stringent ^ rst e ff r t in this direction was to extend the
measures in slave code so as to penalize a number of deeds
which theretofore had not been punishable
by law. The Southern States enacted more stringent
measures to regulate traveling and the assembling of slaves,

NAT TURNER

A Declining Antislaveiy Movement 95

to make them ineffective in assembling for insurrection pur
poses or for information from contact with other persons
or from schools. These stringent measures applying to
traveling and assembly were not restricted to slaves but
made applicable also to the free Negroes and mulattoes.
The wording of these laws differed to a certain extent, but
they usually provided that it would be unlawful for Negroes
or slaves above a certain number, usually five, to assemble
without the permission of their masters, even for wor
ship, unless the services were conducted by a recognized
white minister or observed by certain discreet and repu
table persons." Some States prohibited the immigration
of free persons of color, and because of the circulation of
bills, literature, and such inflammatory pamphlets as that of
David Walker, there were enacted several laws to the
effect that whosoever should write, print, publish or dis
tribute such literature so as to spread discontent among
the slaves would be imprisoned for life or put to death.
It was still further provided that all persons who should
teach or cause to be taught any slave to read or write
should suffer the same penalty.

In many of the Southern States, however, the effort was
made not only to regulate the traveling and assembling
of the free Negroes but to get rid of them entirely by giving
them so many days to leave the State. 5 The Free Negroes
Missouri General Assembly enacted in 1819 a driven out.
law providing that there should be no more assemblages of
slaves or free Negroes or mulattoes, mixing or associating
with such slaves for teaching them to read, and when that
State framed its constitution on being admitted into the
Union it incorporated into that document a provision to
prevent the immigration of free Negroes into that State.
Louisiana prohibited the immigration of free persons of

s See C. G. Woodson s A Century of Negro Migration, p. 40; and
The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861, pp. 151-178.

The Negro In Our History

color in 1814, and in 1830 excluded such persons from the
State, giving them a definite period to leave.

In 1831 Mississippi followed in the footsteps of her
sister State. In cases where free Negroes were not driven
out, as in South Carolina, certain stringent measures to
safeguard the interests of the slaveholders materially in
terfered with the economic
welfare of these persons
of color. In 1834, when
South Carolina provided
that there should be no
teaching of Negroes by
white or colored friends
and that their schools
should be disestablished, it
provided also that persons
of African blood should not
be employed as clerks or
salesmen in or about any
store or house used for
trading. This legislation
did not disgrace the statute
books of the border States
of Kentucky, Maryland
and Tennessee, but public
opinion there sometimes had the same effect.

Against this system of repression, however, a few promi
nent men of the South continued to protest. Chancellor
Harper of South Carolina felt that it was shameful to
Protests of prevent the blacks from obtaining sufficient
sympathetic knowledge to read the Bible. Daniel R. Good-
!rs loe, of North Carolina, was of the same opin
ion. Southerners of the most radical type, moreover, did not
like to live under the stigma with which they were branded
by William Jay, who charged them with having closed up

THE MOTHER AND CHILD

A Declining Antislavery Movement 97

the Bible in denying the Negroes the revelation of God,
while at the same time they styled themselves Christians.
Some opposition was, therefore, shown, and in certain parts
it was found impossible to execute restrictive measures be
cause of the healthy public opinion against them. The chil
dren of the sympathetic aristocratic slaveholders, and espe
cially the wives and children of ministers, hardly ceased to
teach Negroes to read as much as the Bible. Under the di
rection of Bishop Capers of South Carolina, Reverend Josiah
Law and Reverend C. C. Jones of Georgia, and Bishop Polk
of Louisiana, much was accomplished by a new system of
training called religious instruction. Under this system
the Negroes were not allowed to read and write but were
taught to commit to memory in catechetical form the
principles of religion and instructive parts of the Bible. 6
This reaction, however, was not peculiar to the slave
States. 7 In the proportion that free Negroes, finding it im
possible to live in the South, sought refuge in the North,
race prejudice and friction increased. These Reaction in
culminated in race riots, easily developed in tlie North -
that section at the time the country was receiving a number
of Irish and German immigrants who competed directly
with the Negroes as laborers. Negroes were not permitted
to enter the academy thrown open to them at Canaan, New
Hampshire, in 1834 ; the people of New Haven at a public
meeting of their leading citizens strenuously protested
against establishing there a manual labor school for the
education of Negroes; and the citizens of Canterbury
actually imprisoned Prudence Crandall by securing special
legislation to that effect because she persisted in admitting
Negro girls to her seminary, which in becoming attractive

s See also C. G. Woodson s A Century of Negro Migration, pp.
39-60.

7 This is extensively treated in C. C. Jones s Religious Instruction
of Negroes and in C. G. Woodson s Education of the Negro Prior to
1861, Ch. VIII.

98 The Negro In Our History

to that race might increase the colored population of that
city to the displeasure of its, white citizens.

Riots of a graver sort were frequent throughout the
North during these years. The first sanguinary conflicts
of consequence took place in Ohio. In 1826 a mob under-
Race riots in took to drive the Negroes out of Cincinnati,
the North. i n 133 6 another mob not only attacked Ne
groes but broke up also the abolition press, which was sup
posed to encourage the influx of persons of that class.
In 1841 there was in the same city a local race war which for
a week disturbed that metropolis to the extent of resulting
in the death of a number of persons and the expulsion of
many Negroes from the city. On a " Black Friday," Janu
ary 1, 1830, eighty of the two hundred Negroes living in
Portsmouth, Ohio, were driven out of the city as undesir
ables. A mob of Germans drove John Randolph s Negroes
from their own land in Mercer County, Ohio, where he had
provided for their settlement and freedom.

The East offered no exception to this rule. The citizens
of Philadelphia began to burn Negro homes in 1820, sought
to expel the blacks from the city and State in 1830 and
Riots in actually mobbed them in 1834, destroying

the East. their churches and other property. In 1838

another conflict developed into a riot which resulted in the
destruction of Pennsylvania Hall and the Colored Orphan
Asylum in that city. When the Negroes in 1842 undertook
to celebrate the abolition of slavery in the West Indies, an
other occasion was afforded for race conflict, which meant a
loss of life and property to the Negroes. Pittsburg, fol
lowing the example of Philadelphia, had such a riot in 1839.
In 1834, this rule of the mob in New York City and Pal
myra led to riots during which the Negroes were attacked
along- the streets and driven from their homes.

CHAPTER VII

ECONOMIC SLAVERY

THE plantation system resulting from the industrial rev
olution, the cause of the radical reaction, made slaveholding
a business of apparently tremendous possibilities. Large
sums were invested in the enterprise, and the The rise of
South entered upon its career as a borrowing the plantation,
section. There was a rush of southern white men from the
older States along the coast to the fertile cotton lands of
the Gulf district as soon as they were opened for settlement.
Many came almost empty handed, but the majority of those
taking up large tracts of land brought their slaves with
them. The number of slaves increased forty or fifty per
cent between 1810 and 1820, and they came thereafter in
droves. 1

On their way to the Southwest the slaves experienced the
usual hardships of a long drive. The inhuman traders
placed the children in wagons and forced the men and
women to walk from twenty-five to fifty miles The internal
a day. Often traders encountered on the way slave trade -
bought some of the slaves in transit, after subjecting them
to such an examination of their teeth and other parts
as to determine their age and health. Featherstonaugh
mentions his meeting in southwestern Virginia a camp of

i A. B. Hart, Slavery and Abolition, Chs. IV, V, VI, and VII; U. B.
Phillips, American Negro Slavery, pp. 151-401; W. E. B. DuBois,
The Negro, Ch. IX; M. B. Hammond, The Cotton Industry; Debow s
Review; Williams Wells Brown, The Rising Son, 265-318; G. W.
Williams, History of the Negro Race in America, Vol. I, pp. 115-324;
and J. B. McMaster s History of the United States, VII, pp. 238-370.

100 The Negro In Our History

Negro slave drivers just packing up to start. He said:
They had with them about three hundred slaves who had
bivouacked the preceding night in chains in the woods.
These they were conducting to Natchez, on the Mississippi
River, to work upon the sugar plantations in Louisiana.
It resembled one of the comes spoken of by Mingo Park,
except that they had a caravan of nine wagons and single-
horse carriages for the purpose of conducting the white
people and any of the blacks that should fall lame. The
female slaves, some of them sitting on logs of wood while
others were standing, and a great many little black children,
were warming themselves at the fire of the bivouac. In
front of them all, and prepared for the march, stood in
double files about two hundred men slaves, manacled and
chained to each other."

Referring to one of these parties, Basil Hall said : l In
the rear of all came a light-covered vehicle with the master
and mistress of the party. Along the roadside scattered at
A drove intervals we observed the male slaves trudging

of slaves. m f ron t. At the top of all, against the sky

line, two men walked together apparently hand in hand,
pacing along very sociably. There was something, however,
in their attitude which seemed unusual and constrained.
When we came nearer accordingly, we discovered that this
couple were bolted together by a short chain riveted to
broad iron clasps secured in like manner round the wrists. 3

Josiah Henson, a Negro brought into this traffic, said:
"Men trudged on foot, the children were put into the
wagon, and now and then my wife rode for a while. We
Josiah went through Alexandria, Culpepper, Fau-

Henson. quier, Harper s Ferry, Cumberland, and over

the mountains to the Natural Turnpike to Wheeling. In

2 G. W. Featherstonaugh, Excursion through the Slave States, Ch. I,
p. 120.

s Basil Hall, Travels in Vorth America, Ch. ITT, pp. 128-129.

Economic Slavery

101

all the taverns along the road were regular places for the
droves of Negroes continually passing along under the
system of internal slave trade. At the places where we
stopped for the night, we often met Negro drivers with
their droves, who were almost uniformly kept chained to
prevent them from running away. I was often invited to
pass the evening with them in the bar-room their Negroes,

in the meantime, lying
chained in the pen, while
mine were scattered around
at liberty." 4

Edwin L. Godkiii said :
"The hardships these Ne
groes go through who are
attached to one of these mi
grant parties baffles de
scription. They trudge on
foot all day
through mud
and thicket without rest or
respite. Thousands of miles
are traversed by these
weary wayfarers without
their knowing or caring
why, urged on by whip and
in full assurance that no change of place can bring any
change to them. Hard work, coarse food, merciless flog
ging, are all that await them, and all that they can look
to. I have never passed them staggering along in the
rear of the wagons at the close of a long day s march, the
weakest furthest in the rear, the strongest already utterly
spent, without wondering how Christendom, which eight
centuries ago rose in arms for a sentiment, can look so

Hardships.

JOSIAH HEN SON, prototype of
Uncle Tom s Cabin

* Josiah Henson, Uncle Tom s Story of His Life, p. 53.

102 The Negro In Our History

calmly on at so foul and monstrous a wrong as this Ameri
can slavery. 5

This migration, of course, had a disastrous effect on the
seaboard States from which so many masters and their
slaves were drawn. Industry was paralyzed on the lower
Atlantic coast. There were the worn-out lands with de-
The decline of ser t e d homes once characterized by abundance
the seaboard and luxury, ruined and distressed debtors
wondering how to find relief, humiliated plant
ers with no way of escape but migration. Efforts at fer
tilization to rebuild the waste places were tried, and with
this the slave States near the Atlantic experienced a sort
of revival about the middle of the nineteenth century.
This was due also, some think, to the demand for slaves
as laborers on the railroads which were then being con
structed to unite the South and to connect it with the West.

To supply the Southwest with slaves, however, the do
mestic slave trade became an important business, and the
older States which suffered from the migration devoted
Slave themselves to slave breeding for this market,

breeding. j n ^he wor k entitled Slavery and the Internal

Slave Trade in the South, it is estimated that seven of
the older States annually exported 80,000 to the South.
These were Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, Kentucky,
Tennessee, Missouri and Delaware. Professor Asa Martin
thinks that Kentucky furnished 5,000 a year. This flour
ished the more because of the restrictions on the African
slave trade. One writer estimates the number of slaves
exported from Virginia at 120,000. It is difficult to figure
out numbers, however, for the documents bearing on the
sale of slaves did not always determine exactly what their
destination would be. Men sometimes bought them appar
ently for private use, concealing their ultimate aim to sell

B The North American Review, Vol. CLXXXX, pp. 46, 47.

Economic Slavery

103

them South. Except when forced by economic necessity
or in the case of insubordination, some masters refused to
sell their slaves if they knew that they would have to un
dergo the tortures of servitude in the cotton and sugar
districts. It is also difficult to determine who were the
interstate slave traders. Almost all commission merchants
dealt in slaves as in any other property, and they were not
anxious to be known as being primarily interested in a

A SLAVE AUCTION

work which was in no sense popular among the more nearly
civilized slaveholders.

Some of these masters, in advertising slaves for sale,
specifically stated that they were not to be sold out of the
State, and persons who were bold enough to proclaim them
selves as such traders were mentioned with Slaves
opprobrium in the older slave States. 6 The sold south,
presence of such traders in Winchester, Virginia, in 1818,

6 I. E. McDougle, Slavery in Kentucky in The Journal of Negro
History, Vol. II, pp. 226-230.

104 The Negro In Our History

evoked the comment : * * Several wretches, whose hearts
must be as black as the skins of the unfortunate beings who
constitute their inhuman traffic, have for several days been
impudently prowling about the streets of this place with
labels on their hats exhibiting in conspicuous characters
the words, * Cash for Negroes. Some time in the thirties
of the last century a master of Danville, Kentucky, sold
a Negro woman to a regular slave trader. Upon learning
this, threats of a mob to do him violence compelled this
master to go in quest of the trader, from whom he re
purchased the woman at a decidedly increased price. 7 Yet,
intense as this feeling was, Delaware was the only slave
State to legislate against the interstate slave trade. Mary
land, Kentucky and Louisiana undertook somewhat to
regulate it.

This enlightened minority could not stop this traffic, and
it became for a number of centers in the border States a
source of much revenue. Dealers bought up slaves in the
A source of local markets and confined them in jails,
revenue. taverns, warehouses or slave pens, while await

ing buyers from the Southwest. The average slave pen
had an administration building for the slaves, a court for
the women and one for the men, with gates, barracks, and
eating sheds. Some of the slave pens, however, were no
more than statjes for cattle or horses. On the convenient
day they were placed on the sales block and auctioned off
to the highest bidder. The slaves themselves, sometimes for
personal advantage in determining their buyers, aided or
impeded the sale by singing their own praises or proclaim
ing their shortcomings. Thus they spent weeks and months
until the owner drove a bargain with a trader, who removed
them in coffles to their doom in the rising cotton kingdom.

7 The Journal of Negro History, Vol. Ill, p. 229.

Economic Slavery 105

In this way the Negroes were made the means of exploit
ing the new Southwest by accelerating the westward move
ment from the South. The slaves were thereby taken from
a declining section, where they had become such a burden
that these States would have necessarily become antislavery,
had they remained. These blacks were carried to the cotton
district, where they were apparently profitable servants in
developing a new industry. The 85,000,000 pounds of cot
ton produced in 1810 doubled by 1820, doubled again during
the next decade, and doubled still once more by 1840. This
was then about two-thirds of the cotton production in the
world. After that period there was no question as to our
leadership in the production of this raw material.

What, then, was the plantation system, serving as the
basis of this large cotton industry? This was the method
of cultivating an estate of hundreds and sometimes thou
sands of acres. The administration centered The
in the residence of the planter or, in case of plantation,
absentee ownership, in the home of the manager of the
estate. Nearby stood the stable, smoke house, corn house,
and a little farther away appeared the garden, potato field,
watermelon patch, and the like. Somewhat distant from this
central building were the homes of the slaves, commonly
known as quarters. These were in most cases rude huts,
often with dirt floors and so poorly constructed as to fur
nish little protection from bad weather. Furniture was
generally lacking unless the few stools and the beds of
straw be worthy of such designation. In some cases the
slaves were allowed to till a patch of ground on which they
produced their own vegetables, and some few of them were
permitted to raise chickens or hogs. They had to look
after these personal affairs at night, on Sundays, or holi
days, as their whole time was otherwise required in the
service of their masters.

106

The Negro In Our History

In the case of just a few slaves the master often worked
with them. On larger plantations, however, slaves worked
in gangs under masters or their overseers, if the master had
Slaves at sufficient holdings to afford such supervision.
work. j n the culture of rice the work could be so

divided as to assign it as tasks, holding each slave respon
sible for a definite accomplishment. Some few planters, like
McDonogh of Louisiana, and Z. Kingsley of Florida, ran

A PLANTATION

their plantations on something like the self-government
basis. Slaves were thrown largely on their own initiative to
earn what they could. The control was vested in courts, the
personnel of which were slaves, and the administrative of
ficers of which were also bondmen carrying out the man
dates of these tribunals. Isaiah T. Montgomery of Mound
Bayou, Mississippi, was taught with white children and
trained as an accountant to serve in this capacity on the
Joseph Davis plantation in Mississippi.

Economic Slavery 107

As a plantation was a community in itself, it had to be
governed as such. On large plantations managed by men
of foresight, definite rules were drawn up to determine the
procedure of overseers and slaves. These were intended to
maintain the government of the slaves, produce Plantation
the largest crop possible, and at the same time management,
to exercise such care over the bondmen as not to lose any
of them by unnecessary harsh treatment and neglect of
their health. On some plantations, however, masters either
worked to their own detriment by driving their slaves to an
untimely death, or by the absentee ownership procedure,
permitted their overseers to do so. This was often true in
cases in which overseers were paid by giving them a share of
the crop. The abuses practiced by these managers caused
many planters to brand them as being a negligent, selfish,
and dishonest class. The situation was not any better when
the slaves were placed under a Negro driver.

Slaves were not generally cared for when sick. Women
in pregnancy were more neglected than ever, and some
worked too hard to bear healthy children. Many slaves
were not given sufficient of the simple corn- The care
bread, bacon and salt herrings they were al- of slaves,
lowed, and a still larger number were not adequately
clothed. Negroes supplemented their rations by hunting and
trapping at night. Some of them, by working at night,
accumulated means by which they added to the meager
provisions for their families supplied by their masters.
A few hoarded considerable sums with which they pur
chased their freedom and made their way to free States
where they established themselves anew. Others had to
steal to obtain a subsistence, and were even encouraged to
do so by parsimonious masters.

Above all, punishments were crude and abusive. Be
cause it would be prejudicial to their own economic inter
ests, masters no longer mutilated Negroes or destroyed them

108 The Negro In Our History

on the wheel, as in the eighteenth century, unless it was ab
solutely necessary; but flogging, unmerciful beating and
even burning at the stake sometimes followed. In cases of
unruly Negroes they were sold South, where
they faced the alternative of either yielding
or being punished to death. The runaway slaves were
hunted with dogs. When brought back they were put in
heavy iron shackles or collars and sometimes subjected to
such tortures as drawing out the toe-nails. Those persisting
in resisting their masters were sometimes murdered. These
conditions, however, differed from plantation to plantation,
according to the liberality of the master.

The slave, after the reaction, was not generally allowed
any chance for mental development, of course, and could
not learn to appreciate religion. Planters in some parts,
Enlightenment thinking that the teaching of religion might
prohibited. j ea( j to fa Q teaching of letters, prohibited it

entirely. The best slaves could then do for mental de
velopment was to learn by contact and by stealth. Many a
sympathetic person taught slaves to read, and in some cases
private teachers were bold enough to maintain schools for
them, as was done in Savannah, Charleston, and Norfolk.

How some of these slaves learned in spite of opposition
makes a beautiful story. Knowing the value of learning
as a means of escape and having a longing for it, too, be-
Stealing cause it was forbidden, many slaves continued

learning. their education under adverse circumstances.

Some of them, like Frederick Douglass, had the assistance
of sympathetic whites who were a law unto themselves;
others studied privately and even attended school. Chil
dren of the clergy, accustomed to teach slaves to read the
Bible, were, by custom, regarded as enjoying an immunity.
Some private teachers among the whites encouraged
Negroes to steal away to secret places where their operations
were shielded from the zealous execution of the law.

Economic Slavery 109

The majority of these enlightened slaves, however, learned
by contact, observation and dint of energy. 8 Many of them
were employed at such occupations as to develop sufficient
mental power to read, write, and cipher. Learning by
"Blazon it to the shame of the South," said contact.
Kedpath, "the knowledge thus acquired has been snatched
from the spare records of leisure in spite of their honest
wishes and watchfulness. Many, like Robert Williams and
Albert T. Jones, stole enough to enable them to read with
ease. Lott Gary heard a minister preach from the third
chapter of St. John, and on returning home read that pas
sage of scripture, although he had never before been taught
to read and had not hitherto made such an effort. Dr.
Alexander T. Augusta of Virginia learned to read while
serving white men as a barber. President Scarborough of
Wilberforce was taught by one J. C. Thomas, a cruel south
erner of the bitterest type.

In spite of their circumstances a few slaves experienced
another sort of mental development. Being in a rapidly
growing country where the pioneers had to make use of the
forces of nature, here and there a slave became inventions
an inventor. According to the opinion of of slaves.
Henry E. Baker, an examiner in the United States Patent
Office, slaves made certain appliances, experimenting with
the separation of the seed from cotton, which, when observed
by Eli Whitney, were assembled by him as the cotton gin.
Freedmen, during these years, were more successful. While
James Forten, a free Negro of Philadelphia, was making
a fortune out of his new device which he perfected for
handling sails, Henry Blair, of Maryland, interested in
labor saving, patented two corn harvesters in 1834 and in
1836. Norbert Rillieux, a man of color in Louisiana,
patented an evaporating pan by which the refining of sugar

s C. G. Woodson, Education of the Negro Prior to 1861, Ch. IX.

The Negro In Our History

Economic Slavery 111

was revolutionized. There is much evidence that some
of the inventions brought out by white persons in the South
prior to the Civil War were devices invented by Negroes.
The slave as such, according to an opinion of Jeremiah S.
Black, attorney-general of the United States in 1858, could
not be granted a patent, for the reason that the slave could
neither contract with the government nor assign his inven
tion to his master. Confronting this problem, when Ben
jamin T. Montgomery, a slave of Jefferson Davis, was on
this ground denied a patent on an invention, the President
of the Confederate States secured the enactment of the law
providing for patenting inventions of slaves. 9

In spite of these notable exceptions under this economic
system, however, the Negro race became an element with
which the whites would not deal as man with man. The
whites were by law and public opinion re- Negroes
strained from accepting Negroes as their so- socially
cial equals, and miscegenation of Negro men
and white women was penalized as a high crime, although
there were always a few instances of such association.
Abdy, who toured the country from 1833 to 1834, doubted
that such laws were enforced. "A Negro man," said he,
"was hanged not long ago for this crime at New Orleans.
The partner of his guilt his master s daughter endeav
ored to save his life, by avowing that she alone was to
blame. She died shortly after his execution."

With the white man and the Negro woman, however, the
situation was different. A sister of President Madison once
said to the Reverend George Bourne, then a Presbyterian

9 This law was :

And be it further enacted, That in case the original inventor or
discoverer of the art, machine or improvement for which a patent
is solicited is a slave, the master of such slave may take oath that
the said slave was the original ; and on complying with the requisites
of the law shall receive a patent for said discovery or invention, and
have all the rights to which a patentee is entitled by law.

112 The Negro In Our History

minister in Virginia: "We Southern ladies are compli
mented with the name of wives; but we are only the mis-
A weakness tresses of seraglios. 10 But the masters of
of the the female slaves were not the only persons

of such loose morals. Many women of color
were prostituted also to the purposes of young white men
and overseers. Goodell reports a well-authenticated ac
count of a respectable l Christian lady at the South, who
kept a handsome mulatto female for the use of her genteel
son, as a method of deterring him, as she said, i from indis
criminate and vulgar indulgences." Harriet Martineau
discovered a young white man who on visiting a southern
lady became insanely enamored of her intelligent quadroon
maid. He sought to purchase her, but the owner refused to
sell the slave because of her unusual worth. The young
man persisted in trying to effect this purchase and finally
informed her owner that he could not live without this at
tractive slave. Thereupon the white lady sold the woman
of color to satisfy the lust of her friend.

Against the hardships of the system numerous slaves re
belled. Most of them did nothing to injure their masters,
so thoroughly had they become intimidated after Nat Tur-
The runaway ner s fate, but they endeavored to make their
slave. escape into the woods, too often only to be

brought back after a few weeks adventure. The newspa
pers quickly proclaimed the news of a runaway, offering
in its advertisements some attractive reward. White men
assisted with firearms, and bloodhounds trained to run down
fugitives, hunted them like game even in the North. That
section, struck by the inhuman methods to recapture slaves,
passed personal liberty laws to prevent the return of the
Negroes apprehended, as many of these were kidnapped

10 The Journal of Negro History, Vol. ITT, p. 350.

Economic Slavery

113

free persons taken under pretext of being runaways. 11
These laws, however, were nullified by the decisions of the
federal courts and the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, which
undertook to impress into the service of slave-hunting men
who were conscientiously opposed to the institution. The
North was then the scene of the most disgraceful deeds,

THE PURSUIT

which aroused the consciences of the people and swelled the
ranks of the abolition minority which at one time seemed
to decline to meet premature death.

The efforts of the slaves to escape from bondage, how
ever, were unusually successful in the Appalachian moun
tains, where there had been retained a healthy sentiment
against slavery. The mountaineers of North Fugitives.
Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee organized antislavery

11 These
Bondage.

Laws are collected in Kurd s Law of Freedom and

114 The Negro In Our History

societies during the first quarter of the nineteenth century.
When that movement became unpopular they generally sup
ported the cause of colonization, which served as the best
solution of the immediate problem of the race; for the
frontiersmen were not particularly attached to the Negro
race but felt that the institution of slavery was an economic
evil of which the country should rid itself by a system of
gradual emancipation as soon as possible. When, however,
the conditions of the Negroes in the South became so in
tolerable that it was necessary to flee for larger liberty in
the Northern States, they found it easy to make their way
through this region where the farmers were not attached
to the institution. It was of some help, too, that they could
easily hide in the mountains and in the limestone regions
which furnished comfortable caves. The promoters of the
Underground Railroad, therefore, offered them a way of
escape by extending their system southward through the
The mountains of these States so as to connect with

Underground the fugitives escaping thither. These lines led
Railroad. through Kentucky into Ohio, Indiana and Illi

nois, and connected with the Great Lakes, over which the
fugitives passed into Canada, under the guidance of persons
like the heroic Josiah Henson, Harriett Tubman, and John
Brown. 12

Slaves in urban communities enjoyed more privileges.
Employed in the trades and domestic service affording close
contact with their masters, they were economically better
Town slaves, off than the free Negroes whom they often
doomed to poverty by crowding them out of the various
pursuits of labor. There was scarcely any industry in
which slaves did not engage, and in most cases to the
exclusion or at the expense of the poor whites as well as of
the free blacks. Some contractors owned their workmen

12 W. H. Siebert, Underground Railroad, p. 166.

Economic Slavery

115

just as masters owned the Negroes on their plantations.
Master mechanics less favorably circumstanced hired
slaves. In a few cases slaves were employed under the di
rection of a slave master mechanic who took contracts,
managed the business, and reported to the master at cer
tain periods. It was soon learned, however, that a slave
as such easily competed with free Negroes and whites. It
was, therefore, necessary
for the masters to grant
such bondmen the larger
freedom of profit-sharing
or of hiring themselves to
stimulate them to greater
endeavor. This custom
proved prejudicial to white
mechanics, and in several
States laws were passed to
prevent the hiring of slaves
to themselves. But this
custom continued in spite
of strenuous efforts to the
contrary, as the enforce
ment of it would have ma
terially restricted the use
of slaves. Many slaves
thus employed were cheated
in the end by dishonest contractors, but others more fortu
nately situated contrived thereby to purchase their own
freedom and that of their families. To do this many
Negroes worked at night after finishing their tasks by
day, but this privilege served as another reason for legis
lation against this custom, as it would lead to an increase
in the number of free Negroes who might promote servile
insurrection.

In the city, too, it was possible for the Negroes to main-

HARRIETT TUBMAN

116 The Negro In Our History

tain among themselves certain social distinctions based
upon their advantages of contact with the whites and the
amount of culture they had taken over. Those employed
Social in the higher pursuits of labor and as domestic

distinctions, servants to the rich whites were enabled by
the working-over of cast-off clothes and imitating their
masters language and airs, to lord it over the crude slaves
of the fields. In culture the less fortunate Negroes were
further separated from these urban free blacks than the
latter were from the whites. In their social affairs they
sometimes had much liberty and apparently experienced
much joy. They so impressed travelers with their content
ment in this situation that some concluded that the Negroes
had no serious objection to their enslavement.

Slavery as an economic system, however, required more
restriction in religious matters, especially after the South
ampton insurrection. Northern Negroes undertook to ex
tend the work of their independent connections into the
Eestrictions South, as in the case of Charleston, South
on religious Carolina, to which the African Methodists,
after their withdrawal from the whites, sum
moned Negroes to be ordained to serve in that city. This
freedom of action, however, was too much for the South, and
the independent church movement there was stopped.
Meetings were prohibited and the bishop, his exhorters, and
immediate followers were ordered to be imprisoned if they
did not depart from the State, while others were fined or
given a number of lashes. As Negroes were thereafter
forced to accept what accommodations were given them in
the white churches, they gradually yielded room to the in
creasing membership of the whites until the blacks were
forced to the galleries or compelled to hold special services
following those of the whites. A refusal of Negroes to give
up to the whites prominent seats long occupied by them in
a church in Charleston, South Carolina, led to their ejection

Economic Slavery 117

by a group of white youths. When criticized for this these
young members behaved so unbecomingly that nine of them
had to be expelled; but to show their attachment to the
southern policy one hundred and fifty others left with
them.

Unsuccessful efforts were then made to establish separate
churches for the slaves, like the Calvary Church in Charles
ton, and the African Baptist Church in Richmond. For
feigned reasons the legal endorsement for the Negro
latter was not given until 1855, and then churches,
on the condition that a white minister be employed. In
the churches in the cities in the border States, however,
there was more religious freedom among the slaves. There
was a Baptist Church in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1830.
George Bentley, a Negro preacher of polemic distinction,
was preaching to the most enlightened whites as well as
blacks in Giles County, Tennessee, in 1859; and Henry
Evans, a shoemaker and licensed Methodist minister,
preached with such success for the conversion of the sinful
in Fayetteville, North Carolina, that from his efforts there
was organized a church with a membership drawn from
both races. The white members became so numerous that
they crowded out the Negroes. In the large cities there was
still more religious freedom. Washington Negroes had
several churches early in the nineteenth century, and Balti
more had ten churches for slave and free Negroes in
1834.

The South, however, had succeeded in hedging in the
Negro so that he might forever afterward do the will of
his master, but this seemingly sane method of developing
the South was what resulted in its undoing. si avery the
Since migration of slaveholders promoted a undoing of
segregation of planters of the same class, mov- } *

ing under similar conditions and to the same section, it made
reform almost an impossibility, and in preventing the im-

118 The Negro In Our History

migration of white laborers into the slave States the system
became so strongly intrenched that it had to be attacked
from without. In the first place, in the effort to exploit
black men it transformed white men into bloodthirsty be
ings. The system, moreover, promoted the formation of
wasteful habits. It prevented the growth of towns and cities
and shut out manufacturing, leaving the South dependent
on the North or European nations for its manufactures.
While the North was receiving an influx of free laborers the
South was increasing unnecessarily its slave labor supply,
indulging in unwise investments, and overstocking the mar
kets with southern staple crops. In making labor undigni
fied, moreover, it reduced the poor whites to poverty, caused
a scarcity of money, cheapened land, and confined the South
to one-crop farming at the expense of its undeveloped
resources.

The economic interests of the two sections, therefore,
began to differ widely during the thirties. When Missouri
asked for admission to the Union, the struggle which ensued
Differing emphasized these differences. Prior to this

interests. period slavery had well established itself in

that territory. When everything had been arranged and
Congress was about to pass the bill providing for its ad
mission, James Talmadge, a representative from New York,
upset things by offering an amendment providing that slav
ery should not be allowed in that territory. This led to a
fiery debate participated in by the stalwart defenders of the
proslavery section of the country and by the Congressmen
of the North, who although at that time unprepared to ad
vocate a general abolition of slavery, were convinced that
it was an evil and desired to prohibit its expansion. It was
pointed out by the antislavery element that some of the
State of Missouri lies farther north than the mouth of the
Ohio River, above which slavery was prohibited by the

Economic Slavery 119

Ordinance of 1787 organizing the Northwest Territory. 13
The main question was whether or not Congress had any
right to limit a State coming into the Union. Decidedly it
had, but it was necessary to argue the question. It was
pointed out that in the admission of the State of Louisiana
Congress imposed certain conditions requiring that the
State should use the English language as its official tongue,
should guarantee the writ of habeas corpus and trial by
jury, and incorporate into its organic laws the fundamental
principles of civil and religious liberty. They could have
pointed out, too, that Ohio was required to comply with a
number of requirements, among which was the use of certain
of its lands in the Western Reserve and in the southeast. 14

The antislavery group, moreover, contended that inas
much as Congress is required by the Constitution to guar
antee to each State a republican form of government
it was necessary to prohibit slavery, which Binding
was incompatible with that form of govern- a state -
ment. The proslavery party supported their cause on the
ground that to impose a restriction on a State would place
it on a basis of inequality rather than that of equality
with other States. The privileges enjoyed by one State
should be enjoyed by all. If one had the right to hold
slaves, all should enjoy the same privilege as they had when
all were admitted to the Union. It was contended, more
over, that powers not delegated to the United States Gov-

13 There are discussions of the constitutional question growing out
of slavery in Herman von Hoist s The Constitutional and Political
History of the United States of America, in John W. Burgess s
Middle Period and his Civil War and Reconstruction, and in James
Ford Rhodes History of the United States, Chs. VI and VII. Burgess
and Rhodes, however, are generally biased.

14 Restrictions were also imposed later on California when it was
provided that the duties on goods imported there should have to be
fixed according to terms set forth in the amendment to the regular
navy act.

120 The Negro In Our History

eminent nor prohibited to the States were reserved to the
States. The question as to whether a State should hold
slaves, therefore, was reserved to that commonwealth and
Congress had no right to interfere therewith.

It was asserted also, as was admitted thereafter, that the
restriction against slavery in the Ordinance of 1787 was
not binding on those States of the territory that had been
The Ordinance admitted to the Union, and that they could in-
of 1787. troduce slavery when they desired. 15 The

proslavery leaders believed that the institution of slavery
would be beneficial to the country rather than an evil, in that
it would provide for an extension of the system, reducing
the number held by each person and, therefore, bringing the
slave into more direct and helpful contact with the master.
The agitation was quieted for the time being, after the
compromise permitting Missouri to come into the Union as
a slave State but prohibiting the institution south of parallel
thirty-six, thirty constituting the southern limit of Missouri.

Another important question came forward in the Missouri
debate when the question had been all but settled, that is,
when the State had framed a constitution in keeping with
Tne the instructions given in the enabling act, but

citizenship had incorporated into this document a clause
egroes. providing for the exclusion of free Negroes
from that commonwealth. This provision was seriously
attacked by the friends of justice, arguing that inasmuch as
these Negroes were citizens of the United States, no State
had a right to restrict their privileges, as such action would
conflict with the Constitution of the United States, which
guarantees to the citizens of each commonwealth all the
privileges and immunities of citizens in every other com
monwealth. This drove home the real truth which the

T J. P. Dunn, Indiana; A Redemption from Slavery, pp. 218-260;
N. D. Harris, The History of Negro Servitude in Illinois, Chs. Ill,
IV and V; and B. A. Hinsdale, Old Northwest, pp. 351-358.

Economic Slavery 121

country had not before realized, that there was such a thing
as citizenship of the United States in contradistinction to
citizenship in a State, and that the citizenship of the United
States is more than citizenship of a State. When a citizen,
therefore, immigrated into and settled in another State, he
should not, according to the Constitution, lose the right to
be treated as a citizen of that commonwealth. When this
involved the rights of the Negro it was certainly startling
to the representatives of the South ; and Missouri, for that
reason, if for no other, was less inclined than ever to
change that provision of its Constitution. The matter was
settled by a second compromise, to counteract the effect this
clause might have, by providing that nothing therein con
tained should be so construed as to give the assent of Con
gress to any provision in the Constitution of Missouri which
contravened that clause in the Constitution of the United
States which declares that the citizens of each State shall
be entitled to all of the privileges and immunities of citizens
in the several States.

Slavery again showed its far-reaching effects. Dur
ing the first three decades of the nineteenth century, the
South, in the natural order of things, became a section
dependent solely on its peculiar institution, a Slavery and
district devoted entirely to agriculture and the tariff,
almost solidly organized in defending such interests. For
this reason the South developed into a mere plantation.
The North, on the other hand, in view of the shipping
industry, its commerce, and the manufacturing, which of
necessity grew during the war of 1812 and decidedly
expanded thereafter, developed a number of business and
industrial centers desirous of protecting their industries
by imposing certain duties on goods imported from
Europe. This caused a shift in the positions of the lead
ers of these two sections. Whereas, in 1816, John C.
Calhoun was an advocate of a protective tariff and Daniel

122 The Negro In Our History

Webster was a free trader, in 1832 Webster was in favor
of import duties and Calhoun had constructed a policy of
free trade. With the support of the West, desiring a pro
tective duty on its hemp and the like, the manufacturing
districts were able to secure the enactment of tariff-for-
protection measures in 1824, 1828 and 1832. 16

Against the protective tariff the commonwealths of the
South began to argue that it was discriminatory and there
fore unconstitutional, in that it imposed a tax upon one
Opposition to section for the benefit of the other. Congress,
the tariff. as the South saw it, had no right to legislate

in behalf of one section at the expense of the other. So bit
ter did the South become because of this seeming imposition
that in 1832 South Carolina undertook to nullify the tariff
law of 1832, believing very much as Kentucky and Virginia
had in 1798, that a State had a right to obey or to nullify
a law passed by Congress, if, in its judgment, it found out
that that law was prejudicial to the interests of the State
concerned.

It was made clear, moreover, that South Carolina was
of the opinion that this country was not a Union but still
a Confederation loosely held together very much as the
A union or a States were under the Articles of Confedera-
confederacy? t i on ^ State, therefore, as long as it chose
to be bound by the terms of the Constitution could continue
to do so, but if at any time it felt that the union with the
other States was undesirable, it could of itself or in con
nection with a number of States constituting a majority
call a convention representing the same power by which the
Constitution was ratified and declare the severance of the
ties that bound them to the Union.

It was necessary, therefore, for the Union to take high
ground for its own self-preservation. Although Andrew

16 See Calhoun s speech in the Appendix.

Economic Slavery 123

Jackson, then President of the United States, did not hold
any brief for the tariif himself, he could not countenance
the act of nullification. He, therefore, threatened to use
force should South Carolina refuse to obey the laws of Con
gress. This matter, like others threatening the foundation
of the Union, was settled by a compromise brought for
ward by Henry Clay to the effect that the duties would
remain as they were under the law of 1832, but by a gradual
process would be diminished until they reached the rates
acceptable to South Carolina.

Slavery brought out also another economic question in
connection with internal improvements. It was difficult for
a slaveholding section to expand as rapidly as the manu
facturing and commercial parts of the country. In this all
but phenomenal growth of the United States internal
there was an urgent need for canals and roads improvements,
to tap the resources of the interior. As the South in its
slow development did not feel this need and thought that it
would not generally profit by these improvements, it usually
opposed them on the grounds that the United States
Government had no authority to make such improvements
and the States had not the required funds. This opposition
resulted from the observation that these improvements were
unifying influences which strengthened the Union at the
expense of the South, which hoped to hold the axe of
secession over the heads of the Unionists.

CHAPTER VIII

THE FREE NEGRO

WHILE the fate of the slaves in the South was being
determined, there was also a considerable number of free
persons of color whose status was ever changing. Few
people now realize the extent to which the free Negro
The status of n g ure( l in the population of this country prior
the free to the Civil War. 1 Before slavery was re-

egro duced from a patriarchial establishment to the

mere business of exploiting men, a considerable number of
Negroes had secured their freedom, and the fruits of the
American Revolution, effective long thereafter in ameliorat
ing their condition, gave an impetus to manumission. In
some colonies Negroes were indentured servants before
they were slaves, and became free upon the expiration of
their term of service. The result was that there were in this
country in 1790 as many as 59,557 free people of color,
35,000 of whom were living in the South. During the two
decades from 1790 to 1810, the rate of increase of free
Negroes exceeded that of the slaves, and the proportion of
free Negroes in the black population increased accordingly
from 7.9 per cent in 1790 to 13.5 per cent in 1810. After

iJohn H. Russell, The Free Negro in Virginia, passim; E. R.
Turner, The Negro in Pennsylvania; F. U. Quillin, The Color Line vn
Ohio, passim; C. T. Hickok/TVie Negro in Ohio, passim; C. G. Wood-
son, A Century of Negro Migration, pp. 1-100; the Journal of Negro
History, I, 1-68, 99-100, 203-242, 302-317, 361-376; II, 51-78, 164-185;
III, 90-91, 196-197, 360-367, 435-441, and Negro Population in the
United States, 1190 to 1915.

124

The Free Negro 125

this date the tendency was in the other direction because of
the reaction against the Negro, bringing about a restriction
on manumissions.

Between 1810 and 1840 the Negro population almost
doubled, but the proportion of the free Negroes remained
about the same. Because of further restriction on manu
mission and the more secure foundation of Slow increase,
economic slavery with rigid regulations to prevent the
fugitives from escaping, this proportion of free Negroes in
the black population decreased to 11.9 per cent by 1850 and
to 18 per cent by 1860. While the Negro population as a
whole doubled its percentage of increase, then, that of the
free blacks declined. It became smaller in parts of the
North and declined to one-fourth of the rate of increase
between 1800 to 1810. In 1860 the rate of increase was
about one per cent a year. It is worthy of note, however,
that there were 434,455 free Negroes in the United States
in 1850 and 488,070 in 1860. At this latter date 83,942
of these were in Maryland, 58,042 in Virginia, 30,463 in
North Carolina, 18,467 in Louisiana, 11,131 in the District
of Columbia, 10,638 in Kentucky; in short, 250,787 in the
whole South.

This increase of free Negroes was largely a natural
growth. There had been, of course, some additions by pur
chases of freedom and the acquisition of new territory.
They did not immigrate into this country, increase a
for only 7,011 free Negroes enumerated in
1860 were born abroad. Some idea as to the
extent other factors figured in this may be obtained from
the fact that 1,467 Negroes were manumitted in 1859 and
1,011 became fugitives. In 1859 there were 3,000 manu
missions and 803 fugitives. The census of 1860 reports
that probably 20,000 manumissions were made during the
decade between 1850 and 1860.

126 The Negro In Our History

Negro Population, 1790 to 1860

Free Decennial Increase

Census

Per

Number

Per cent

Year

Total

Number

cent

Slave

Free

Slave

Free Slave

1860 4

,441,830

488,070

11.0

3,953

,760

53,575

749,447

12.3

1850. ... 3

,638,808

434,495

11.9

3,204

,313

48,202

716,958

12.5

1840 2

,873,648

386,293

13.4

2,487,355

66,694

478,312

20.9

1830.. . 2

,328,642

319,599

13.7

2,009

,043

85,965

471,021

36.8

30.6

1820. .

. 1

,771,656

233,634

13.2

1,538

,022

47,188

346,660

25.3

1810. .

. 1

,377,808

186,446

13.5

1,191

,362

78,011

297,760

71.9

1800. .

. 1

,002,037

108,435

10.8

893

,602

48,908

195,921

82.2

1790. .

, 1

,757,181

59,557

7. .9

697

,624

The statistics of the Negro population between 1790 and
1915 suggest as an explanation for this decrease that the
free people of color were much older and therefore subject
Sex to a higher mortality rate; that they were

distribution. j ess normally distributed by sex and therefore
probably characterized by a marital condition less favor
able to rapid natural increase. Among the free Negroes at
each of the five censuses, from 1820 to 1860, there were
fewer males than females, whereas the distribution as to sex
among the slaves remained about equally divided between
"the two. While this does not altogether account for the
disparity, it doubtless had something to do with the situ
ation, for the Negroes manumitted were, as a majority,
men, and those who contrived to escape were largely of the
same sex. Furthermore, masters controlled the slave supply
so as to add what number they needed from whichever
sex seemed deficient.

The customs and regulations restraining the slaves did
not generally apply to the free people of color even when
so provided by law. Some of them were closely connected
with their masters, who ^ave ^p^ mnrft oor\ ^deration than
The status of that shown bv many others wfo sold their
free Negroes. own flesh and blood. In spite of the law to
the contrary, a few such benevolent masters maintained
schools for the education of their mulatto children. When
that became unpopular they were privately instructed or
sent to the North for education. Charleston, South Caro-

The Free Negro 127

Una, affords a good example of the interest manifested in
the free people of color by the attitude of citizens, who
winked at the efforts of the free blacks to educate their
children in well-organized schools in defiance of the law.
In the State of Louisiana, where many of these mixed
breeds were found, their fathers sometimes sent them to
Paris to avail themselves of the advantages of the best
education of that time.

These free Negroes were not all on the same plane. In
the course of time they experienced a development of social
distinction which largely resembled that of the whites.
There were treedmenlu possession 6! a considerable amounjE
o^ jproperty, others who formed a lower class of mechanics
and artisans, and finally those^ My* 11 ? with difficulty above
pecuniary embarrassment. Among those in the large cities
social lines were as strongly drawn as between the whites
and the blacks, and the antipathy resulting therefrom was
hardly less.

The well-to-do free Negroes were not merely persons with *
sufficient property to form an attachment to the com
munity. Many of them owned slaves, who cultivated their
large estates. Of 360 persons of color in progressive
Charleston, 130 of them were, in 1860, assessed freedmen.
with taxes on 390 slaves. In some of these cases, as in that
of Marie Louise Bitaud, a free woman of color in New Or
leans, in 1832, these slaves were purchased for personal
reasons or benevolent purposes, often to make their lot
much easier. They were sometimes sold by sympathetic
white persons to Negroes for a nominal sum on the condition
that they be kindly treated.

Some of these instances are enlightening. A colored man
in 1818 bought a sailmaker in Charleston. Richard Rich
ardson sold a slave woman and child for $800 to Alexander
Hunter, guardian of the Negro freeman Louis Mirault of
Savannah. Anthony Ordingsell, a free man of color, sold

128 The Negro In Our History

a slave woman in the same city in 1833. A Charleston Negro
who purchased his wife for $700 sold her at a profit of
$50 because she would not behave herself. To check this,
laws restricting manumission, as in Virginia in 1806, were
enacted to limit this benevolence of white men by imposing
difficult conditions. Thereafter, these freedmen were to be
sent out of the State unless their former master agreed to
support them.

Some other Negroes of less distinction accomplished
much to convince the world of the native ability of the
Negroes to extricate themselves from peculiar situations and
Undistin- to ma ^ e progress in spite of opposition,

guishedfree Samuel Martin, a benevolent slaveholder of
Negroes. color residing at Port Gibson, Mississippi, pur

chased his own freedom in 1829, and thereafter purchased
two mulatto women with their four children, brought them
to Cincinnati in 1844, and emancipated them. Another
Negro named Creighton, living in Charleston, South Caro
lina, accumulated considerable wealth which he finally de
cided to devote to the colonization of the Negroes in Liberia.
He disposed of his property, offering his slaves the alter
native of being liberated on the condition of accompanying
him to Africa or of being sold as property. Only one of his
slaves accepted the offer, but he closed up his business in
Charleston, purchased for the enterprise a schooner of his
own, and set sail for Liberia in 1821.

Among the prosperous free Negroes in the South may
be mentioned Jehu Jones, the proprietor of one of the most
popular hotels in Charleston and owner of forty thousand
Wealthy dollars worth of property. There lived

persons of Thorny Lafon in New Orleans, where he ac
cumulated real estate to the amount of almost
half a million dollars, and in the same city a woman of
color owning a tavern and several slaves. A Negro in
St. Paul s Parish, South Carolina, was said to have two hun-

The Free Negro 129

dred slaves, and a white wife and son-in-law, in 1857. In
1833 Solomon Humphries, a free Negro well known by men
of all classes in Macon, Georgia, kept a grocery store there
and had more credit than any other merchant in the town.
He had accumulated about twenty thousand dollars worth
of property, including a number of slaves. Cyprian Ricard
bought an estate in Iberville Parish, with ninety-one slaves,
for about $225,000. Marie Metoyer, of Natchitoches Parish,
possessed fifty slaves and an estate of more than 2,000
acres. Charles Rogues of the same community left in 1848
forty-seven slaves. Martin Donato, of St. Landry, died in
1848, leaving a Negro wife and children possessed of 4,500
arpents of land, eighty-nine slaves and personal property
worth $46,000.

These Negroes, however, were exceptions to the rule.
Most well-to-do free Negroes in urban communities be
longed to the artisan class, and there were more of them
than one would think. In southern cities most Prosperous
of the work in the mechanic arts was done by mechanics,
the slaves, as there was less discrimination in this field in
the South than in the North. Contrasting the favorable
conditions of southern Negroes with that of those in the
North, a proslavery man referred to Charleston, South
Carolina, as furnishing a good example of a center of un
usual activity and rapid strides of thrifty free Negroes.
Enjoying these unusual advantages, the Negroes of Charles
ton were early in the nineteenth century ranked by some as
economically and intellectually superior to any other group
of such persons in the United States. A large portion of the
leading mechanics, fashionable tailors, shoe manufacturers,
and mantua-makers were free Negroes, who had "a con
sideration in the community far more than that enjoyed by
any of the colored population in the northern cities.

What then was the situation in the North ? The fugitive
slave found it difficult. Most Negroes who became free as

130 The Negro In Our History

a result of manumission had been dependents so long that
they lost their initiative. When thrown upon their own
resources in the North where they had to make opportuni
ties, they failed. In increasing the number of those seeking
Hardships in economic opportunities in the North, more-
the North. over, they so cheapened the labor as to make
it difficult for the free Negroes already there to earn a live
lihood. They were, therefore, branded by the writers of the
time as the pariahs of society. There was, in fact, as much
prejudice against the free Negroes in parts of the North as
in the South. This feeling, however, resulted largely from
the antipathy engendered by the competition of the Negroes
with the large number of Germans and Scotch-Irish immi
grating into this country a generation before the Civil War.

Some few Negroes facing these conditions returned
South and reenslaved themselves rather than starve in the
North. A larger number in the South, however, were en-
The return to slaved against their wills for such petty of-
the South. fenses as theft and the like, which almost any
poverty-stricken man would be liable to commit. They
were ordinarily arrested as suspected fugitives, or for va
grancy and illegal residence, and finally sold for jail fees.
As Negroes in these cases were not allowed to testify in their
own behalf, the official arresting a free Negro generally
preferred against him whatever charge best suited his con
venience and disposed of the Negro accordingly. Eighty-
nine were sold in Maryland under the act of 1858 justify
ing such reenslavement. Much of this repression was in
stituted for intimidation to keep the free Negroes down
that they might never join with slaves in an insurrec
tion.

How did the situation of the free Negro compare with
that of the white man? In the first place, the freedman
Restrictions, was not a citizen in any Southern State after
1834 and was degraded from that status in certain States in

The Free Negro 131

the North. In most States free persons of color had with
some limitations the right to own and alienate property, even
to own and sell Negro slaves. Early statutes and customs,
however, prohibited them from owning whites as servants,
and during the intense slavery agitation of the thirties
this right of holding Negroes as slaves was gradually re
stricted to whites because of the benevolent use made of it
by certain Negroes, who purchased more than their wives
and children. For fear of improper uses, too, free Negroes
in the South were not allowed to own such property as
firearms, dogs, firelocks, poisonous drugs and intoxicants.
As they were prohibited from serving in the State militia,
they would have no need for firearms. The Negro, more
over, had a weak title to property in himself. If the
Negro s right to be free were questioned, the burden of
proof lay on him.

In some cases, however, the free Negroes had a little
chance in the courts. The freedmen had the remedy of
habeas corpus. They could bring suit against persons doing
them injury, and in the case of seeming injus- Some
tice in a lower court they could appeal to privileges,
a higher. When charged with crime the free Negro had the
right to trial by jury and could, after indictment, give
bond for his liberty. The right of jury trial was after Nat
Turner s insurrection in 1831 restricted in several southern
States to cases punishable by death. It must be remem
bered, however, that the Negro could not expect a fair trial ;
for, consistent with the unwritten primitive law of the
white man in dealing with the blacks, judgment preceded
proof. In the case of ordinary misdemeanors the lot of the
free Negroes was no better than that of the slave. Corporal
punishment in these cases was administered to the Negroes
without stint, whereas a white man guilty of the same
offense would be requested to pay a fine. In most cases of
felony the punishment for a white man and a free Negro

132 The Negro In Our History

was the same in the beginning, but the reaction brought
on certain distinctions.

At times the free Negroes could go and come to suit them
selves. During the ardent slavery agitation, however, it was
necessary for them to exhibit their free papers when ques
tioned. They were later restrained from moving from one
Egress and State to another or even from one county to
regress. another without securing a permit. In some

southern States, nearer the middle of the nineteenth cen
tury, it was unlawful for a free Negro to return to the State
after leaving, as he might be spoiled by contact or educa
tion.

Although forcing the free Negroes to a low social status,
the local government did not exempt them from its bur
dens. In Virginia, free Negroes were required to pay a poll
tax of $1.50 in 1813 and $2.50 in 1815. In 1814, 5,547 free
Negroes in that State paid $8,322 in taxes, and in 1863 they
paid $13,065.22 in poll taxes. The Negroes in Baltimore
paid $500 in school taxes in 1860, although their children
could not attend the city schools. Most States taxed the
free Negroes inconsistently in the same way.

Socially, the Negro, whether slave or free under the eco
nomic regime, was an outcast. Prejudice based on color
rather than on condition made him an object of opprobrium
The Negro in the nineteenth century, in contradistinction
an outcast. to hj s condition a hundred years earlier. In
the seventeenth century there followed miscegenation of the
races. In the eighteenth century free Negroes still ex
perienced some interbreeding and moved with the whites
socially in certain parts. In the nineteenth century all social
relations between the whites and the free Negroes be
came about the same as those of the former with the
slaves.

No laws prevented the intermarriage of the free Negroes

The Free Negro 133

and Indians. Squaws accepted Negroes for husbands, and
Indian men commonly had black wives. Extensive mis
cegenation of these stocks was experienced in interbreeding
most States in the South. As these two races with the
were in common undesirables among the n ans *
whites, the one early manifested sympathy for the other,
as was evidenced by the fact that in the massacre of 1622
in Virginia not an African was killed. In the raids of
the Indians on the settlers of Louisiana, Negroes often acted
in concert with them. Efforts had to be made to separate
the Negroes from the Indians, when the former eagerly re
sorted to their reservations as places of refuge. In some
cases the Negroes on these estates survived the Indians,
who became extinct.

Out of these unions came a class of Negroes commonly
known as the mustees, or mestizos, and it became necessary
for laws and legal documents citing persons of color to
give in detail all of these various designations. Mustees and
No distinction was later made between them mestizos,
and other persons of color, however, and they passed as a
part of the free Negro population. Evidences of their
presence in Virginia appeared at an early date. In 1734
John Dingie, an Indian of King William County, married
Anne Littlepage, a mulatto daughter of the wealthy Ed
mund Littlepage. He himself was occupied as a sailor, and
his wife, a free woman, was the heir of considerable wealth.

Free Negroes mingled more with the slaves, however,
than with any other class. This was not the condition in
the beginning, but in the course of time, when the free
Negroes dwindled in number and their chances R e i at i 0ns O f
for education and the accumulation of wealth free Negroes
grew less, the social distinctions between them and slaves -
and the slaves diminished and they associated with and
married among them. This became common in the nine-

134 The Negro In Our History

teenth century. In fact, when the question of employment
became serious, it was often advantageous for a free Negro
to marry a slave wife. This attachment too often prevented
a free Negro from being expelled from the State by the
hostile laws when he had this all but permanent connection
with the community. A master would not force him to
leave for fear that he might induce his family to escape.
Some slaves disliked free Negroes because conditions had
made the former apparently the inferiors of the latter.

The accomplishment of this task of reducing the free
people of color almost to the status of the slaves, however,
was not easy. In the first place, so many persons of color
Exceptions to had risen to positions of usefulness among
the rule. progressive people and had formed connec

tions with them that an abrupt separation was both inex
pedient and undesirable. Exceptions to the hard and fast
rules of caste were often made to relieve the people of color.
The miscegenation of the races in the South and especially
in large cities like Charleston and New Orleans, moreover,
had gone to the extent that from these centers eventually
went, as they do now, a large number of quadroons and
octoroons, who elsewhere crossed over to the white race.
As the status of the Negroes remained fixed, however, while
that of the poor whites changed, the close relations for
merly existing between these classes gradually ceased.

The free Negro was in many respects a disturbing factor
in the economic system. White laborers did not care to
compete with them. The free Negro usually won in the
A disturbing contest, for the reason that his standard of liv-
factor. j n g was i ow er and he could work for less.

Moreover, being almost defenseless before a hostile public,
he could be more easily cheated and was, therefore, to be
preferred. According to testimony, however, they were
of economic worth. Yet others called them idlers, criminals,
vicious vagabonds, a vile excrescence and the like. These

The Free Negro

135

opinions may not be taken seriously when there are so many
others to the contrary.

In the North the Negroes were likewise socially and, in ad
dition to this, economically proscribed. Yet Successful
they usually succeeded in permanently estab- Negroes,
lishing themselves wherever they had an opportunity. 2

rit

NEW YORK AFRICAX FREE SCHOOL, No. 2, built a century a^o

Joseph C. Cassey and William Platt became enterprising-
lumber merchants in Western New York ; Henry Topp came
forward as a leading merchant tailor in Albany, and Henry
Scott of New York City founded and promoted for a num-

2 For other instances of free Negroes making economic progress, see
William Wells Brown s The Black Man, M. R. DeLany s The Con
dition of the Colored People of the United States, Alexander Mott 8
Biographical Sketches, W. J. Simmons s Men of Mark, C. G. Wood-
son s A Century of Negro Migration, and The. .Journal of Negro
History,, under the caption Undistinguished Xcgroes,

136 The Negro In Our History

her of years one of the most successful pickling establish
ments in that metropolis, while along with him arose
Thomas Downing, a caterer, and Edward V. Clark, a pros
perous jeweler. Other Negroes were building churches, es
tablishing schools, and editing newspapers promoting the
interests of the people of color.

In Pennsylvania, where Negroes were found in large
numbers, more evidences of progress were noted. The Ne
groes of Philadelphia had taxable property to the amount
THHiUm^ nf of $"350.000 in 1832 T S359.626 worth in 1837.
progress. and $400,000 worth in 1847. They had estab

lished before emancipation more than a score of churches
with which were connected more than a hundred benevolent
societies and a number of schools. Five hundred of these
Negroes were mechanics, and a considerable number ranked
as business men. Among the latter were James Forten, a
sail manufacturer, Joseph Casey, a broker, and Stephen
Smith, a lumber merchant. William Goodrich of York was
investing in railroad stock. Benjamin Richards of Pitts-
burg was accumulating wealth in the butchering business,
and Henry M. Collins of the same city was developing a real
estate enterprise of considerable proportions.

The Free Negro

A NEGRO NEWSPAPER EDITED A CENTURY AGO

CHAPTER IX

BLAZING THE WAY

THE free Negroes, moreover, exhibited not only the power
to take care of themselves in old communities, but blazed
the way for progress of the race in new commonwealths and
in all but forbidden fields. In the Northwest Territory,
where many free Negroes from the South were colonized,
their achievements were no less significant. Luke Mulber
came to Steubenville, Ohio, in 1802, hired himself out to a
carpenter for ten dollars a month during the summer and
Instances of went to school in the winter. At the expiration
success. O f three years he could do rough carpentry

work and had about mastered the fundamentals of educa
tion. With this as a foundation he rose to a position of
usefulness among the people of his town. Becoming a con
tractor, he hired four journeymen and did such creditable
work that he was often called upon to do more than he
could. David Jenkins, of Columbus, Ohio, was then a
wealthy planter, glazier, and paper hanger. One Hill of
Chillicothe was its leading tanner and currier.

In Cincinnati, where, as a group, the Negroes had their
best opportunity, many made rapid strides forward. By
1840 the Negroes of this city had acquired $228,000 of real
estate. One Negro was worth $6,000 ; another, who had pur-
Achievements chased himself and family for $5,000 a few
in Cincinnati. years pr j r to 1840, was worth $1,000. An
other Negro paid $5,000 for himself and family and bought
a home worth $800 to $1,000. A freedman who was a slave
until he was twenty-four years of age, then had two lots

138

Blazing the Way

139

worth $10,000, paid a tax of $40, and had 320 acres of land
in Mercer County, Ohio. His estate altogether was worth
about $12,000 or $15,000. A woman who was a slave until
she was thirty then had property worth $2,000. She had
also come into potential possession of two houses, on which
a white lawyer had given her a mortgage to secure the
payment of $2,000 borrowed from this thrifty woman. An
other Negro, who was on the auction block in 1832, had

jfi

A SECONDARY SCHOOL IN MEKCER COUNTY, OHIO, admitting
Negroes in 1842

spent $2,600 purchasing himself and family and had bought
two brick houses, valued at $6,000, and 560 acres of land,
said to be worth $2,500, in Mercer County, Ohio.

Out of this group in Cincinnati came some very useful
Negroes, among whom may be mentioned Robert Harlan,
the horseman; A. V. Thompson, the tailor; J. Presley and
Thomas Ball, contractors ; and Samuel T. Wil- Statistics,
cox, the merchant, who was worth $60,000 in 1859. There
were among them two other successful Negroes, Henry
Royd and Robert Gordon. Boyd was a Kentucky freedman

140 The Negro In Our History

who helped to overcome the prejudice in Cincinnati against
Negro mechanics by inventing and exploiting a corded bed,
the demand for which was extensive throughout the Ohio
and Mississippi Valleys. He had a creditable manufac
turing business in which he employed twenty-five men.

Eobert Gordon, the other Negro there, was doubtless a
more interesting character. He was born the slave of a
rich yachtsman in Richmond, Virginia. His master placed
A shrewd him in charge of a coal yard, which he handled
business man. so faithfully that his owner gave him all of
the slack resulting from the handling of the coal. This he
sold to the local manufacturers, accumulating thereby in
the course of time thousands of dollars. He purchased him
self in 1846 and after inspecting several Negro settlements
in the North went into the coal business in Cincinnati.
Having then about $15,000, Gordon made much morfc
progress in this coveted enterprise than his competitors de
sired. They thereupon reduced the price of coal so as to
make it unprofitable for Gordon to continue in the business.
He was shrewd enough to fill all of his orders at the white
coal yards by making his purchases through mulattoes who
could pass for white. Soon there followed a general freez
ing on the Ohio River, making it impossible to bring coal
down the river. Gordon then sold out his supply at ad
vanced prices, so increasing his wealth that he was later
in a position to invest extensively in United States bonds
during the Civil War and afterward in real estate on
Walnut Hills in Cincinnati.

This economic progress would have been greater, had it
not been for race riots in communities in which free Ne
groes lived. On January 1, 1830, a mob drove eighty Ne
groes from Portsmouth, Ohio ; 1,200 Negroes left Cincinnati
Riots. for Canada as a result of the riot of 1829, and

others lost life and property in the riots of 1836 and 1841.
The disastrous effects of this unsettled state were further ag-

Blazing the Way 141

gravated by the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Many fugi
tives and their relatives residing in the free States moved
immediately into Canada after the proclamation of this
measure as the law of the land. Within thirty-six hours
thereafter forty Negroes left Massachusetts for Canada. The
Negro population of Columbia, Pennsylvania, decreased
from 943 to 437. A Negro settlement at Sandy The Fugitive
Lake in the northwestern part of that State was Slave Law -
broken up altogether. Every member of a Negro Methodist
Church, eighty-two in number, including the pastor, fled
from a town in New York to Canada. The Negro churches
of Buffalo lost many communicants. One in Rochester lost
one hundred and twelve, including the pastor, and another
in Detroit eighty-four. Some Negroes stood their ground
and gave battle, as in the case of the Christiana tragedy in
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where Edward Gorsuch
was killed and his son wounded by free Negroes whom
he wanted to enslave.

Those Negroes who dared to remain in the free States
to defy the slave catchers were not thereafter in a frame of
mind to promote their economic welfare, so great was the
demand on their time for maintaining their p ersona i
freedom. In fact, the main concern of many freedom
leaders among the free Negroes and their
sympathizers was aiding fugitives to reach free soil.
William Craft, escaping from Macon, Georgia, with his
handsome quadroon wife who effected their escape by posing
as his owner, caused unusual excitement in the North until
this heroic dash for freedom ended with their flight to
England. Then followed the arrest of Daniel as a fugitive
in Buffalo, where the federal commissioner re- Seeking
manded him to his claimant. Hamlet was fugitives,
captured by his pursuers in New York City while the
arrest of Jerry in Syracuse was stirring the whites and
blacks throughout the North. Shadrach, claimed as a

142

The Negro In Our History

slave in Boston, was imprisoned but almost miraculously
spirited away to Canada, Thomas Simms, arrested later,
however, was returned to slavery to please those who feared
the southern threats of secession if the Fugitive Slave Law
was not enforced, and to satisfy Boston business men who

did not care to lose their
trade with the South.
Then for a similar reason
came the return of An
thony Burns, a Baptist
clergyman, arrested at the
instance of Charles F. Sut-
tle of Virginia, while two
hundred special policemen
had to be sworn in to re
strain citizens who consid
ered the law an infringe
ment upon personal liberty.
The Dred Scot decision,
denying that the Negroes
were citizens and making
slavery national and free
dom sectional, was the cli-

ELLEN GRAFT, a fugitive disguised
as her master

max of these invasions of
human rights.

Thousands of fugitives,
however, were never apprehended. They were gener
ally well directed through the free States by the agents
of the Underground Railroad conducted by Quakers and
militant abolitionists. This was not any
well-known route controlled by a well or
ganized body. It was rather a number of
Christian people scattered throughout the free States but
united with their common purpose to promote the escape of
slaves by clandestine methods in defiance of the mediaeval

The

Underground

Railroad.

lihiziug the Way

143

laws of the United States. There were near the border im
portant stations which were always furnishing much excite
ment in the pursuit and capture, as related by William Still,
in charge at Philadelphia, Levi Coffin, the station master
at Cincinnati, and William Whipper, the moving spirit at
Columbia, Pennsylvania.

Effective work was done in the Northwest Territory.

Through this section extended
numerous routes from Ken
tucky and Tennessee to Canada.
Josiah Henson and Harriett Tub-
man used these routes in con
ducting fugitives to Harriett
freedom. The ca- Tirtman.
reer of the latter in this haz
ardous enterprise was unusually
romantic. Born a slave in Mary
land but endowed with too much
love of freedom not to break the
chains which held her, she be
came in the North the most ven
turesome worker in the employ
of the Underground Railroad. When her coworkers had
much fear as to her safety, she dared to go even into the
very heart of the South. Once she returned to her old home
in Maryland, where she met her master along the road but
easily contrived to prevent him from recognizing her. She
did so much to aid the escape of fugitives and to rescue
freedmen from slave hunters that the aggrieved owners
offered for her capture a reward of $40,000. For these
unusual exploits she became known as the Moses" of her
people.

After the first excitement caused by the execution of the
Fugitive Slave Law, conditions became a little more favor
able for the Negroes in the North. Forcing upon the coun-

WILLIAM STILL, an agent

of the Underground

Railroad

144

The Negro In Our History

try a radical proslavery policy which men formerly in
different as to the issue could hot accept, the southern lead
ers made friends for the Negroes in the North. The effort
to impress the North into the service of recapturing fugi
tive blacks, tended to raise up champions of individual
liberty. The North had enacted personal liberty laws to

counteract this slave-hunt
ing, but these had failed.
Sympathetic whites could
not then go into the heart
of the South to aid the
blacks, but in the border
States, and especially in
cities like Baltimore and
Washington, much was
done for the improvement
of Negroes through the
many churches and schools
established for their spe
cial benefit. Among many
other workers promoting
this cause was Myrtilla
Miner, for years a teacher
of girls of color in the Dis
trict of Columbia and the
founder of the first girls school of methods in "Wash
ington.

In spite of all of their difficulties some of the northern
free Negroes attained national prominence. 1 Among those
to appear after the reaction was John B. Russwurm, the
first Negro college graduate, a classmate of John P. Hale
at Bowdoin in 1826. Kusswurm later went to Liberia and

i These persons of color are given more honorable mention in
Simmons s Men of Mark, in William Wells Brown s The Black Man,
and in his Rising Son.

MYRTILLA MINEB

Blazing the Way

145

served as governor. Dr. James McCune Smith, a distin
guished graduate in medicine of the "Omversity of Glasgow
and for years a practitioner in the city of New York, was
better educated than Russwurm. Dr. Smith Prominent
was a mixed breed of about equal proportion Negroes,
of Caucasian and African blood. In statue he was somewhat
thick and corpulent. He
had a fine head with a
broad and lofty brow,
round, full face, firm
mouth, and dazzling eyes.
As an educated man given
to writing, he was easily
drawn into the discussion
on the race question, which
his knowledge of history,
science, and literature en
abled him to treat in a
scholarly way. He was also
an eloquent speaker who
always made himself clear
and talked to the point.

In the field of writers
there stood two other men
as the first actual historians produced by the race. These
were William C. Nell and William Wells Brown. There
was then so much talk about the Negroes that William C.
men wanted to know more about the achieve- NeU
ments of the race. These writers supplied this need. Nell
was a native of Boston, a man of medium height, slim, gen
teel figure, quick step, elastic movements, a thoughtful yet
pleasant brow, and thin face. Chaste in his conversation and
devoted to literature, he passed as a man of learning with
the reputation of being a person of unimpeachable character.
Nell wrote a book, entitled Colored Patriots of the American

DR. JAMES McCuNE SMITH

The Negro In Our History

FREE NEGROES IN THE CRISIS

CHARLES L. REASON WILLIAM WHIPPER

PHILLIP A. BELL CHARLES B. KAY

Blazing the Way

147

Revolution, a volume containing numerous facts of the
history of the race. lie wrote other books of less impor
tance and collected data which made him the best informed
man in this field during his time.
William Wells Brown, the other writer, was born in

Lexington,

1816. His

slave and

slaveholder.

Kentucky,
mother was a
his father a
Serving in

St. Louis in an office of
Elijah P. Love joy before
the editor was forced to go
to Alton, Brown received
his inspiration and start in
education. He escaped
North, where William
he took an WeUs Brown,
active part in the work
of the Underground Rail
road. From 1843 to 1849
he served as a lecturer of
the American Antislav-
ery Society. He then vis
ited England and France,
where he came into contact

with such lovers of freedom, as James Houghton, Richard
Cobden, Victor Hugo, and M. De Tocqueville, as set forth in
his Three Years in Europe. Brown then published Clotelle;
or the President s Daughter, a narrative of slave life in the
Southern States. He studied medicine during these years,
but never practiced much, as he was busily engaged in ad
vancing the cause of freedom. He was a regular contributor
to the London Daily News, The Liberator, Frederick Doug
lass s Paper, and The National Anti-Slavery Standard. In
1854 Brown published Sketches of Places and People

WILLIAM WELLS BROWN

148

The Negro In Our History

Abroad. His claims as an historian, however, are based on
The Black Man, which appeared in 1863, The Negro in the
Rebellion, published in 1866, and The Rising Son, brought
out in 1882. Up to that date he had done more than any
other writer to popularize Negro history.

There were at this time before the American public a
number of other prominent Negroes ministering to other
needs wherever necessary. There appeared Ira Aldridge,
the successful Shakespearean actor; Edmonia Lewis, the

sculptor; Edwin M. Bannister
and William H. Simpson, paint
ers of promise; Phillip A. Bell
and Samuel E. Cornish, talented
editors of the Colored American;
James M. Whitfield and Frances
E. W. Harper, writers of popular
verse; Charles L. Reason, the
educator called in 1849 to the
chair of Mathematics and Belles
Lettres of New York Central Col
lege; and George B. Vashon, a
graduate of Oberlin, admitted to

the bar in 1847, but rather devoted to education at New
York Central College, where he distinguished himself in
teaching the classics.

Some of the useful preachers were William P. Quinn,
Alexander W. Wayman, Jabez Campbell, Daniel A. Payne,
Peter Williams, William Douglas, Charles B. Ray, John F.
Prominent Cook, Alexander Crummell, and Henry High-
ministers. i an( j Garnett. Most of these clergymen, like
the two last mentioned, rendered important service in higher
positions after the Civil War. Alexander Crummell, a
man of unadulterated blood, attracted unusual attention
by happily combining with his commanding appearance
and fluent speech a liberal education in the classics and

ALEXANDER CRUMMELL

Blazing the Way

149

theology obtained at Cambridge University, England. He
made an impression by delivering in England in 1848 an
address on the life and character of Thomas Clarkson.
Crummell emigrated to Africa in 1852, but returned to this
country in 1873.

One of the Negro students, because of whom the Canaan
Academy in New Hampshire was closed, was Henry High
land Garnett, the son of. a
kidnapped African chief.
He then sought education
at the Oneida Institute
under Beriah Green. He
became a popular Presby-
terian preacher and lec-
turer, but did not come
into his own Henry High-
as a leader land Garnett.
until he delivered to the
Convention of Colored
Americans at Buffalo, in
1843, his famous address
on the Negro. Recog-
nized widely thereafter as
a man of influence on the platform, he went in 1850 to
carry his message to England, from which he proceeded to
Jamaica to serve as a missionary. He served as a Presby
terian minister in Washington and New York City, and
for a few years was the President of Avery College.

In these ranks unselfishly toiled David Ruggles, J. W. C.
Pennington, Samuel R. Ward, and Josiah Henson. Rug
gles was a man of African blood, medium size, gentle
address and polite language. He resided in David
the city of New York where he became an Buggies,
eternal enemy of slaveholders, bringing to that city ser
vants, whose escape to freedom Ruggles often effected by

HENRY HIGHLAND GABNETT

150

The Negro In Our History

means of the Underground Railroad. Deeply interested in
moral, social and political progress of the free Negro in
the North, Ruggles published for several years The Mirror
of Liberty, a quarterly magazine advocating the rights of
the Negroes. In this work he exhibited unusual wit and
logic in hurling blows at his opponents, as is well evidenced
by his pamphlet, entitled David M. Eees, M.D., Used Up.
In this Ruggles exposed the
fallacy of the ardent colon-
izationists who had advo
cated the expatriation of
.the Negroes.

J. W. C. Pennington was
J. W. 0. born a slave
Pennington. j n Maryland.
He was a man of common
size, of unadulterated blood
and of strongly marked
African features, slightly
inclined to corpulency, with
an athletic frame and a
good constitution. He had
no opportunities for early
education, but after his re
lease from bondage he so
applied himself to the
study of the languages,

history, literature and theology that he became a proficient
preacher in the Presbyterian denomination. He served as
pastor of a church in Hartford, Connecticut, where he won
distinction as a preacher and a lecturer. He then made
several trips to Europe to attend Congresses at Paris, Brus
sels and London. On these occasions he was invited to
preach and speak before some of the most refined and aris
tocratic audiences of Europe. In recognition of his scholar-

J. W. C. PENNINGTON

Blazing the Way

151

ship, the University of Heidelberg conferred upon him the
degree of Doctor of Divinity.

Samuel R. Ward, thanks to aid received from Gerrit
Smith, obtained a liberal education in the classics and in
theology. For several years he acceptably served a white
congregation of the Presbyterian denomination at Soutli

Butler, New York. He
was a black man, standing
above six feet in height,
distinguished by a strong
voice, and energetic ges
tures. He shared with
Fred Douglass the honor
of being one Samuel E.
of the most Ward -
popular orators of his day.
He directed his appeal to
the understanding rather
than to the imagination ;
but, says a contemporary,
"So forcibly did they
take possession of it that
the heart yielded. Ideas
formed the basis of his
method. His greater
strength lay in knowing that words and ideas are not
inseparable. He never endeavored to be ornamental, al
though he was not inelegant. He was concise without
being abrupt, clear and forcible without using extraordi
nary stress. Thus equipped for the deliverance of his great
message, he preached or lectured in all the churches, halls
and school houses in Western and Central New York. His
work extended to other parts of the North and to Jamaica
and England.
Josiah Heiison had neither the intellect nor the natural

SAMUEL R. WARD

152

The Negro In Our History

gifts of some of these men, but served as an example of the
capability of the Negro. His experiences in slavery were
Josiah Henson. so strange and peculiarly romantic that on
hearing his story Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe reconstructed
and embellished it so as to form the famous narrative known
as Uncle Tom s Cabin. That he was the original Uncle

a Tom, however, has been

disputed. Josiah Henson
settled in Canada and
then rendered service in
promoting the escape of
118 Kentucky slaves by
means of the Underground
Railroad through Ohio and
Indiana. He thereafter
devoted himself to preach
ing and education among
his people, serving with
Hiram Wilson as one of
the founders of the Brit
ish-American Manual La
bor Institute. He engaged
also in business in Canada,
lectured throughout the
North in behalf of the

emancipation of the slaves, and finally visited England,
where he was received by some of the leading men of that
country and by Queen Victoria.

HARRIETT BEECHER STOWE

CHAPTER X

COLONIZATION

IN the proportion that slavery became an exploitation
effort merely for the enrichment of the whites, the free
Negroes who lived in the South became more and more
undesirable in the eyes of the planters who had reduced
the majority of slaves to the plane of beasts The Cause,
of burden. 1 Debased also to a lower status, the free Ne
groes naturally thought of making an effort to extri
cate themselves from these untoward circumstances, remem
bering always their former state when slavery was of a
patriarchal order. During the first two or three decades
of the nineteenth century, therefore, they gradually found
their way to the North, first by the aid of masters philan-
thropically inclined, especially the Quakers, who, seeing
that their manumitted slaves had little chance for elevation
in the midst of a slave society, sold out their holdings in
the South and moved to the Northwest Territory where they
undertook to establish them as freemen.

Another stage in the transplantation of the free Negroes
was reached when because of their being apparently a men
ace to slavery the free Negroes were by legislation and pub-

1 The story of colonization is given in documentary form in The
African Repository, the official organ of the American Colonization
Society. The attack on colonization is presented in William Jay s
An Inquiry Into the Character and Tendency of the American Colo
nization Society. See also J. H. B. Latrobe s Liberia; Its Origin,
Rise, Progress and Results; John H. T. McPherson s History of
Liberia; Frederick Starr s Liberia; Description, History, Problems;
C. G. Woodson s Century of Negro Migration, Chapter IV; and The
Journal of Negro History, Vol. I, pp. 276-301, 318-338; II, 209-228.

153

154 The Negro In Our History

lie opinion driven out of the South immediately or within
a specified time. This forced into the North such a large
number of free Negroes that there arose a strong protest
from various communities, and some of them agitated pro
hibiting the immigration of Negroes into their common
wealths. Negroes were then coming into the North in larger
numbers than could be easily absorbed, and coming, too, at
the time when thousands of foreigners were immigrating
into this country, they caused an intense race prejudice to
develop against their group. From these two forces that
is, the effort to drive the Negroes from the South and the
attempt to turn them away from the North came a great
impulse to the movement to colonize Negroes abroad. The
condition of the free Negroes was such that it would seem
that they should have been willing to go. They were pro
scribed by employers who preferred whites; they were
denied consideration in the courts when they appealed to
them for being imposed upon by ill-designing persons ; and
they were subject to the attacks of mobs spurred on to
action by almost any petty offense committed by one of the
free population of color.

The idea of colonization was not then new. From the
very beginning of the antislavery movement there was an
effort to provide for restoring the Africans to their native
land. Such a scheme was developed by the Quakers under
the inspiration of George Keith as early as 1713 and was
forever thereafter kept before the people throughout Amer
ica. In the beginning this idea was that of those persons
sympathizing with the Negroes and desiring to ameliorate
their condition by emancipation, but who were unable to
think of incorporating them into their own society to live
with the whites on a plane of equality.

The scheme was further advanced by Fothergill and Gran-
ville Sharp, and was given a new meaning by Anthony
Benezet, who, having much confidence in the intellectual

Colonization 155

power of the Negroes, felt that they might be colonized
nearer to the white people. His proposal was that they
should be settled on the western lands, which Promoters of
were ceded to the Congress of the Confeder- colonization,
ation. In this he was supported by a number of noted men
of his time, chief among whom were Thomas Brannagaii
and Thomas Jefferson. During the Revolution, however,
the manumissions of Negroes had led to the emancipation
of a sufficiently large group of intelligent ones to justify
the expectation that their liberation was not an experi
ment, should they be prepared by education and religious
instruction; and the number of Negroes receiving their
freedom during this time did not render an urgent agitation
for the colonization of them abroad a necessity.

During the closing years of the eighteenth century and
the first two decades of the nineteenth century, however,
the desire for the colonization of the Negroes abroad became
more widespread. Many slaveholders be- projects
lieved that the then ever-increasing important abroad,
institution of slavery could be maintained only by removing
from this country the most striking argument for its aboli
tion, the free Negro; and the foreigners then crowding
the free blacks out of the industries in the North hoped to
remove them from the field of competition. Colonization,
therefore, received a new impetus. The movement was no
longer a means of uplift for the Negro but rather a method
of getting rid of an undesirable class that slavery might
be thoroughly engrafted upon our country.

Up to this time, however, there had not been any unify
ing influence to give the movement the support adequate
to its success. The various advocates of the deportation
of the Negroes had done little more than to NO concerted
express their views. A few had set forth action,
some very elaborate plans as to how the machinery for the
transportation of the Negroes abroad could be easily worked

156

The Negro In Our History

out. Replying, in 1811, to Ann Mifflin, desiring an opinion
on the matter of African colonization, Thomas Jefferson said
that he considered it the most desirable measure which
could be adopted for the gradual drawing off of the black
population. "Nothing," thought he, "is more to be wished
than that the United States should thus undertake to make
such an establishment on the coast of Africa. Unwilling,
however, to content himself with
this mere discussion, Paul Cuffe, a
New England Negro known to the
high seas, transported and estab
lished thirty-eight Negroes on the
west coast of Africa in 1815. This
was the first actual effort at coloni-
Paul Cuffe. zation by Americans,
and it served as an unusual stimu
lus to the movement. Cuffe recom
mended, however, that the region
around the Cape of Good Hope be
selected for colonization.

The colonization sentiment there
after continued to grow. In the
mountains of Tennessee and Ken
tucky, where the infiltration of slaves had made it im
practicable for those emancipators in the mountains
to continue to attack the institution, there developed a
number of flourishing colonization societies which stim
ulated the movement. The Union Humane Society, an
In the West, organization founded by Benjamin Lundy
of Tennessee, had for one of its purposes the removal of
Negroes beyond the pale of the white man. The
same sentiment was expressed in Kentucky in its colon
ization society in 1812 and 1815, when it requested of
Congress that some territory be "laid off as an asylum for
all those Negroes and mulattoes who have been and who

PAUL CUFFE, the first actual
colonizer

Colonization 157

may thereafter be emancipated within the United States,
and that such donations, allowances, encouragements, and
assistance be afforded them as may be necessary for carry
ing them thither and settling them therein, and that they
be under such regulations and government in all respects
as your wisdom shall direct." Encouraged by Charles
Fenton Mercer, a slaveholder of colonization tendencies, the
Virginia Assembly, which, in 1800, had taken up with the
President of the United States the question of colonizing
emancipated slaves and free Negroes, passed a resolution in
1816 asking the American Government to find a place of
asylum on the Northern Pacific coast on which to settle
free Negroes and those afterwards emancipated in Virginia.
That very day a number of persons who had for years
been interested in this movement met in Washington to
effect a permanent organization. Among these persons who
had fostered the cause of colonization was Organization.
Robert Finley, a Presbyterian pastor who had served as
president of the University of Georgia and had been in
touch with Paul Cuffe. There appeared, too, Samuel J.
Mills, a missionary and a promoter of all movements tend
ing to uplift the man far down, Hezekiah Niles, the editor
of the famous Niles Register, Elijah J. Mills, a Congress
man of Massachusetts, and Elisha B. Caldwell, clerk of the
United States Supreme Court. Among the men who at
tended the first meeting were Henry Clay, the compromiser,
Francis Scott Key, the author of the Star Spangled Ban
ner, John Eandolph, a United States Senator from Vir
ginia, Judge Bushrod Washington, a brother of George
Washington, and Charles March, Congressman from Ver
mont. The first general conference of the colonizationists
held in the home of Elisha B. Caldwell, was devoted largely
to prayer for the success cf the enterprise. Addresses were
made by Henry Clay, discussing the delicacy of the ques
tion and expressing the purpose of the meeting and the con-

158

The Negro In Our History

dition on which he had attended. The principal address,
however, was delivered by Elisha B. Caldwell. Various
views were expressed to indicate that although the members
from the North had in mind the interests of the free Ne
groes, those from the South were primarily concerned with
getting rid of this element.

Bushrod Washington was chosen president, and the ma
chinery was constructed
for the extension of the
work of the Society into
all States. In the course
of time, therefore, we hear
of several States having
colonization societies, and
they

were organ
ized in ordi
nary towns.
The purposes of these or
ganizations varied accord
ing to the personnel of
the management and the
section of the country in
which the Society was
founded. The national or
ganization established The

African Repository, the organ of the Society, and in that
way made its declaration as to purpose to the whole
world. Masters were not necessarily urged to free their
slaves, but each community was called upon to take steps
1o provide for the transplantation to Africa of all slaves
who might be liberated at the will of the masters con
cerned or purchased for this purpose, as was the case of
Lott Gary, a Baptist preacher, who, in addition to ren
dering his denomination valuable service in Liberia, served

in some of them

Plans to

extend

colonization.

LOTT CABY

Colonization 159

there creditably also as a governor of one of the provinces.
The well-known promoter of colonization in later years was
the successful lawyer and business man, John H. B. Latrobe,
who, as secretary of the Maryland Colonization Society and
finally President of the American Colonization Society, did
more than any other individual to advance this cause.

It was finally decided to promote colonization in Africa.
The United States Government was approached, and the
matter received the attention of President Monroe, who sub
mitted it to Congress. Upon his recommendation it was
agreed to purchase in Africa certain territory lying near
the Senegal River on the western coast. In making this
purchase accordingly the country was designated as Liberia
because it was to be the land of freedom. Its capital was
called Monrovia in honor of James Monroe, the President
of the United States under whom it was founded.

The problem then was to develop in this country a num
ber of intelligent Negroes who might constitute a nucleus
around which a government could be established. Here we
see that the blacks were encouraged to develop p repa ration
the power to work out their own salvation. It of coloniza-
gave an impetus to the movement for more
thorough education of the Negroes at the very time when
the South was trying to restrict them in such opportunities.
Those Negroes to be sent out were to be trained in the
manual arts, science, and literature, and in the higher
professions. John B. Russwurm, an alumnus of Bowdoin,
the first Negro to be graduated by a college in the United
States, went as an educator to Liberia, where, after render
ing valuable services as an educator and public functionary,
he died.

As the colonizationists had learned from experience that
it was necessary to begin with the youth, better institutions
of learning for Negroes were established for this purpose.
Occasionally one would hear of a southern planter who

160

The Negro In Our History

freed his Negroes and sent them to eastern schools to
undergo such education as would prepare them for higher
life in their new home in Africa. The Society, however,
soon found itself in a dilemma of telling the people of this
country that because the free Negroes were a depraved
class they could not be elevated in this country, and at the
same time encouraging these Negroes and their friends to
promote the education of
the few to be deported that
they might have that same
mental development which
the whites in this country
had experienced.

The colonizationists soon
found themselves facing
other difficulties. The very
people for whom Liberia
was established arrayed
themselves against it. 2 It
was in vain that some con
tended that
it was a phil
anthropic enterprise, since
the meaning of coloniza
tion varied, on the one
hand, according to the
use the slave-holding class
hoped to make of it and, on the other hand, accord
ing to the intensity of the attacks directed against it.
The abolitionists and the free people of color opposed the
Society because of the acquiescent attitude of coloniza
tionists towards the persecution of the free blacks both in
the North and the South. Almost before the colonization

Difficulties of
colonization.

B. KUSSWURM.

JOHN B. RUSSWURM, first Negro to

receive a degree from an American

college

2 L. R. Mehlinger, The Attitude of the Free Negro Toward African
Colonization in The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I, pp. 276-301.

Colonization 161.

societies had been organized, therefore, the free people
of color of Richmond, Virginia, thought it advisable to de
nounce the movement, saying that if they had to be colo
nized they preferred to be settled "in the remotest corner
of the land of their nativity." They passed a resolution
requesting Congress to grant them a portion of territory
on the Missouri River.

About the same time about three thousand free Negroes
of Philadelphia took even higher ground. They claimed
this country as their native land because their ancestors
were the first successful cultivators of its soil. The protests
They felt themselves entitled to participation of Negroes,
in the blessing of the soil which their blood and sweat had
moistened. Moreover, they were determined never to sepa
rate themselves from the slave population of this country
as they were brothers by ties of consanguinity, of suffering
and of wrongs." In 1831 a Baltimore meeting of free
Negroes denounced the American Colonization Society as
being founded more upon selfish policy than in the true
principles of beneficence and, therefore, as far as it regards
the life-giving principles of its operations, it was not enti
tled to their confidence and should be viewed by them * * with
that caution and distrust which happiness" demanded.

The free people of color in Boston inquired of those
desiring to send them to Africa because they were natives
of that land : * * How can a man be born in two countries at
the same time ? Referring also to the pro- The feeling
posal to stop the slave trade by the establish- ^ Bost n.
ment of a colony on the western coast of that continent,
they said: "We might as well believe that a watchman
in the city of Boston would prevent thievery in New York ;
or that the custom house there would prevent goods from
being smuggled into any port in the United States." The
Negroes of New York declared about the same time that
the colonizationists were men of mistaken views, that their

162 The Negro In Our History

offer to colonize the oppressed free people was unjust, and
illiberal, tending to excite prejudice in the community.
The free Negroes of Hartford, Connecticut, referred to the
absurd idea of sending a nation of ignorant men to teach a
nation of ignorant men. They asked, moreover, why
should we leave this land so dearly bought by the blood,
groans and tears of our fathers ? This is our home ; here let
us live and here let us die.

Some of the most distinguished men were effectively
using the rostrum and press to impede the progress of the
American Colonization Society.
The best example of concerted
action against the colonization
movement, however, came from
the annual convention of the free
colored people held first in Phila
delphia in 1830 and afterward in

Support of that and other cities
distinguished annually until the

men - Civil War. The

moving spirit of this enterprise ROBERT PURVIS

was James Forten, ably assisted

by Robert Ray, James Cassey, Robert Purvis and James
McCrummell. They early took the ground that they were
unable to arrive at any other conclusion than that the
doctrines which the society inculcated were "suitable to
those who hold religion in direct violation of the golden
rule, and that the inevitable tendency of this doctrine was
to strengthen the cruel prejudice of their enemies and
retard their advancement in morals, literature and science
in short, to extinguish the last glimmer of hope and
throw an impenetrable gloom over their former and more
reasonable prospects."

In 1852 there was held in Baltimore a pro-colonization
meeting at which, after some discussion, it was decided to

Colonization 163

examine the different localities for migration, giving pref
erence to Liberia. Liberia became the bone of contention,
as very few Negroes were willing to go to Colonization in
that country and a majority of the Negroes Baltimore,
in Baltimore were opposed to colonization of any sort. As
these delegates had come from various parts of Maryland
and did not voice the sentiment of the people of Baltimore,
they were hissed and jeered from an outside meeting which
developed almost into a mob, intimidating the delegates to
the extent that they were not permitted to exercise that
freedom of thought which the exigencies of the hour re
quired. Another meeting of the Baltimore citizens de
nounced this assembly as unrepresentative and proceeded
to proclaim the determination of the Baltimore people to
oppose the policy of permanently attaching the free people
of color to this country.

This feeling of antagonism of the free people of color
manifested itself also in New York in 1848. W. S. Ball,
who had been sent to Liberia by the free peo- An incident
pie of Illinois, undertook to report there to a ^ New York -
colonization meeting as to the lay of the land. In express
ing himself as to the attractions and opportunities of that
country he was interrupted by one Morrell, who approached
the platform and addressed the meeting, saying that the
question as to colonization and the Liberia humbug had been
settled long ago. The audience was then disturbed with
hisses and jeers, and finally with yells for a fight, until the
room was thrown into pandemonium and the meeting broken
up in disorder.

Colonization seemed destined then to have rough sailing.
Although the movement had the cooperation Th e f a ii ure
of an unusually large number of influential of African
men both in the South and in the North, it
failed to carry out the desired object of taking the free Ne
groes over to Africa. From 1820 to 1833 only 2,885 Ne-

164 The Negro In Our History

groes were sent out by the Society. More than 2,700 of
this number were taken from the slave States and about
two-thirds of these slaves manumitted on the condition of
their migrating. Of the 7,836 sent out of the United States
by 1852, 2,720 were born free, 204 purchased their freedom,
3,868 were emancipated in view of removing them to
Liberia, and 1,044 were liberated Africans sent out by the
United States Government.

In the midst of the oppression of the free Negroes and
the necessity for finding an immediate remedy, however,
other schemes for colonization now came forward. There
was proposed a colony of the Negroes in Texas, in 1833,
prior to the time when the State became over-run with
Other slaveholders. The opportunities of this coun-

schemes. try se emed to indicate that there was some rea

son for considering this plan feasible, but others thought
that it would never suit Negroes because of the fugitives
there from Mexico and the presence of a superior race of
people there already speaking a different language and hav
ing a different religion. There- was some talk, too, of the
transplanting of a number of Negroes to British Guiana.
It was thought that because Santo Domingo had become
an independent republic, it would prove to be an asylum
for the free people of color in this country, as Jefferson a
number of years before had predicted. 3

This tendency towards the West Indies was promoted
by the dearth of labor there resulting from the emancipa
tion of the slaves, which, thanks to the untiring efforts of
The danger of Wilberforce and his coworkers, was effected
the exodus. by 1833. The West Indies offered induce
ments to Negroes immigrating into their country. Among
these were Trinidad, which received a number of Negroes
from Baltimore, Annapolis, and Philadelphia^ Jamaica,

3C. G. "\Yoodson, A Century of Xegro Migration, pp. 67-80.

Colonization

105

with its many opportunities, placed her claims for these
refugees and sent her agents into this country to proclaim
the beauties of her civilization and the opportunities of the
land. So favorable did this scheme become that the colo-
nizationists had to redouble their efforts to prevent an
unusually large number of Negroes from going to English-
speaking colonies. Living on a plane of equality with the

whites and enjoying the
rights of citizens, they
would as freemen become
too powerful factors in
the hands of the British,
should they again under
take to wage war against
the United States.

The most successful col
onization, however, was
a sort of Migration
migration at to Canada.
first proposed by Anthony
Benezet, Thomas Branna-
gan and Thomas Jefferson.
This was the migration to
distant lands in America,
especially to British Amer
ica. 4 Canada had served as an asylum for free Negroes
who had made their escape into that country, but during
the period of the cruel oppression of their class Negroes
began to migrate there in large numbers. They secured
land for farms, built homes, constructed churches, estab
lished schools and, in fact, covered a considerable portion
of southern Ontario. In spite of the cold climate, the
abolitionists and the free Negroes themselves usually con-

WILLIAM WILBERFORCE, the anti-
slavery leader in England

4 VV. II. Siebert, The Underground Railroad from Slavery to
Freedom-.

166 The Negro In Our History

sidered it more practical for Negroes to settle there than
to avail themselves of the opportunities offered by the
American Colonization Society in Africa.

Nearer to the Civil War there were established in Canada
a number of Negro communities and towns. They exhibited
the evidences of civilization found in other parts, and the
Progress In Negroes themselves gave proof of what might
Canada. b e done, should their race as a whole be

given the opportunity to make of itself what it would.
They had learned to cultivate the soil, market their
products, and engage in local manufactures. They were,
moreover, not only coming into contact with the commercial
centers of the United States but had begun to export and
import from abroad. Out of these colonies in Canada
emerged a number of intelligent Negroes who thereafter
became factors in the progress of their race.

In the course of time, however, when the conditions of the
free Negroes in Canada did not seem so inviting, a larger
number of them began to think that colonization elsewhere
Recrudes- was a necess ity, although few of them believed
cence of that they should go to Africa. To deal with

on&lt; this question there was organized in 1853 a
national council of the leading Negroes, attracting repre
sentatives from as many as twelve State conventions. So
divided on this question had the Negroes become, however,
that only those persons who believed in colonization some
where were asked to attend. Among the persons thus inter
ested were William Webb and Martin R. Delaney, of Pitts-
burg, Doctor J. Gould Bias and Franklin Turner, of Phila
delphia, Augustus R. Green, of Allegheny, Pennsylvania,
James M. Whitfield, of New York, William Lambert, of
Michigan, Henry Bibb, James Theodore Holly, of Canada,
and Henry M. Collins, of California. Frederick Douglass,
an uncompromising enemy to colonization, criticized this
step as uncalled for, unwise, unfortunate, and premature.

Colonization

167

"A convention to consider the subject of emigration," said
he, "when every delegate must declare himself in favor of
it beforehand as a condition of taking his seat, is like the
handle of the jug, all on one side." James M. Whitfield,
the writer of verse, came to the defense of his co workers,

continuing a literary duel
with Douglass for a num
ber of weeks.

The convention was ac
cordingly held. In it there
appeared three parties, one
led by Martin R. Delaney,
who desired to go to the
Niger Valley in Africa,
another by James M. Whit-
field, whose interests seemed
to be in Cen
tral America,
and a third by Theodore
Holly, who showed a pref
erence for Haiti. The lead
ers of the respective par
ties were commissioned to
go to these various coun
tries to do what they could
in carrying out their schemes. Holly went to Haiti and
took up with the Minister of the Interior the question of
admitting Negroes from the United States.

Before any results from these deliberations could be ob
tained, there appeared evidence of considerable interest in
emigration. This was especially true of Illinois and In
diana, from which commissioners had been sent out to spy
the land. This is evidenced, too, by the sen- interest in
timent expressed by delegates attending the the West-
Cleveland Convention in 1854. The next colonization con-

Expeditions
sent out.

MARTIN R. DELANEY, an author,

physician, and leader before the

Civil War

168 The Negro In Our History

vention was held at Chatham, Canada West, in 1856. One
of the , important features of this meeting was the hearing
of the report of Holly, who had gone to Haiti the previous
year. From this same meeting Martin R. Delaney pro
ceeded on his mission to the Niger Valley in Africa. There
he concluded a treaty with eight African kings, offering in
ducements to Negroes to emigrate. In the meantime, James
Redpath had gone to Haiti and accomplished some things
that Holly failed to achieve. He was appointed Haitian
Commissioner of Emigration in the United States, with
Holly as his coworker. They succeeded in sending to Haiti
as many as two thousand emigrants, the first sailing in 1861 ;
but owing to their unpreparedness and the unfavorable
climate, not more than one-third of them remained.

CHAPTER XI

ABOLITION

BECAUSE of the hard lot of the Negro, the opposition to
slavery was fanned into such a flame during the thirties that
the movement could no longer be properly designated anti-
slavery. It was abolition, an effort to effect William Lloyd
the immediate emancipation of the slaves, Garrison,
since to hold them in bondage was contrary to the law of
God. 1 The most formidable leader of this radical reform
was William Lloyd Garrison, who came forward with the
argument that slavery was contrary to the natural rights of
humanity, had bad effects upon the southern whites, and
handicapped the whole Union, not only as an evil but as a
sin. 2 Coming at a time when the world was again stirred
by the agitation for the rights of man in Europe, this radi
cal movement secured much more attention than it would
have otherwise received. Men were then concerned with
the better treatment of paupers, convicts, and the insane.
They were directing their attention to special education for
dependents and delinquents. There was an increasing in
terest in temperance, the rights of the laboring man then

1 William McDonald, Select Statutes, 385-437 ; A. B. Hart, Slaver;/
and Abolition, 152-295; his History Told by Contemporaries, IV, 24,
42, 72-143; William Jay, Miscellaneous Writings; W. P. and F. J.
Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, passim; F. L. Olmsted, Back
Country; F. A. Kemble, Georgian Plantation, passim; D. R. Goodloe,
Southern Platform; H. von Hoist, History of the United States,
ill; J. B. McMaster, History of the United States, VI, 567-571.

2 See Appendix for extract from the Liberator.

169

170

The Negro In Our History

claimed all but national attention, and woman suffrage came
forward as a promising reform of the time. It was helpful
to the Garrisonian movement, too, that new fields of oppor
tunities were then opening in the North and West. With
the growth of foreign trade, there arose a need for that sort
of labor which the unskilled slave could not furnish. Ap
pearing then at this time, Garrison could more easily
arouse the people of the whole country as to the inevitable
doom of a slaveholding nation.

Basing his fight, therefore, on moral grounds and con
tending that slavery could not
be defended, he evoked the cen
sure of the proslavery people,
who became just as radical and
fiery in the defense of the insti
tution as he was in attacking it.
Slavery a After having been
moral evil. forced out of Balti
more because of his antislavery
utterances he went to Boston and
founded the Liberator. 3 The re
sult was such a clash of words
and a multitude of threats that
it seemed likely that the South
might secede. This feeling was further intensified by a
number of uprisings among Negroes during the first three
decades of the nineteenth century, culminating in Nat
Turner s insurrection in Virginia in 1831. But intense
as this excitement became, Garrison could not be hushed.
His very words will give a better idea as to the earnest
ness of his purpose. He said, "I shall strenuously con-

3 Almost any work on abolition deals largely with the career of
William Lloyd Garrison, but the standard biography of the reformer
is Wendell Phillips Garrison and Francis Jackson Garrison s William
Lloyd Garrison, the story of his life told by his children,

WM. LLOYD GARRISON

Abolition 171

tend for the immediate enfranchisement of our slave popu
lation. I will be as uncompromising as justice on the
subject I am not wrong, I will not equivocate, I will not
retreat a single inch and I will be heard."

The Liberator, of course, could not have at that time
a very wide circulation, but it did find sufficient friends
interested in the cause to maintain the publication. Gar
rison showed that he was by nature a jour- Garrison as
nalist whose opportunity was unexcelled. He a Journalist,
always succeeded in making his newspaper lively by con
ducting editorial combats and in
furiating his antagonists. His
work was made more effective by
his fire-eating oratory. "No ban-
derillero," says A. B. Hart, "ever
more skillfully planted his darts
in the flanks of an enraged bull !
He had no m,ercy on slaveholders,
accepted no excuses for their in
stitution and did not distinguish

between those of the patriarchial

LEWIS IAPPAN
order and those exploiting the

slaves. Intensely interested in his cause, he breathed the
very earnestness of his truths in everything that he said.
Returning from one of his meetings he remarked: "The
whole town has known of freedom. Every tongue is in
motion. If an earthquake had occurred it could not have
excited more consternation."

To promote the cause effectively national organizations
soon seemed a necessity. On October 29, 1833, therefore,
there was issued by Arthur Tappan, Joshua Leavitt, and
Elizur Wright, officers of the New York Antislavery So
ciety, a call for antislavery representatives to meet in Phila
delphia on the fourth of the following December. Sixty

172

The Negro In Our History

delegates appeared and adopted a constitution, 4 together
with a declaration of sentiments, the original draft of which
was drawn by William Lloyd Garrison. This organization
for some years thereafter served as a clearing house for
the expression of abolition sentiment, but because of differ
ences arising in the
ranks thereafter, it had
to share the field with
an American and For
eign Antislavery Soci
ety meeting the require
ments of those who could
not conform with the
methods and procedure
of the American Anti-
slavery Society.

Along with Garrison
worked a number of rad
icals. 5 There stood
Wendell Phillips, a well
made, remarkably grace
ful person of expressive
countenance with a sort
of fascination in the soft gaze of his eyes, attracting atten
tion wherever his beautifully musical voice was raised in
Wendell behalf of the slave. Had he been interested

Phillips. j n some O ther element than the Negro, he

would to-day be known to history as the superior of Pitt,
Sheridan, or Burke. Although having bright prospects for
a future as a popular public man, he early chose the part of
cooperating with the much-hated abolitionists and ever

* See Appendix for a copy of this constitution.

5 The efforts of these various workers are sketched in William
Wells Brown s Rising Son, Ch. on Abolitionists; A. B. Hart s Slavery
and Abolition, pp. 152-323: and W. P. Garrison and F. ,T. Garrison s
William Lloyd Garrison.

WENDELL PHILLIPS

Abolition

ANTISLAVERY APOSTLES

ABBY KELLY FOSTER STEPHEN S. FOSTER

LUCY STONE GEORGE THOMPSON

174 The Negro In Our History

thereafter wielded his eloquence in behalf of freedom and
democracy.

A number of others aligned themselves with these cham
pions of liberty. There was the brilliant scholar, Edmund
Quincy, not so eloquent as Wendell Phillips, but none
Other co- the less staunch in his advocacy of freedom,

workers. There appeared also Francis Jackson, one of

the first to stand by Garrison when the mob broke up his
antislavery meeting in 1835. Maria Weston Chapman,
another of this group, contributed much to the support of
abolition by raising funds through the Antislavery Bazaar.
Charles F. Hovey, the abolition merchant, gave large sums
to support the cause. Eliza Lee Follen, a poet, sang of
liberty and freedom. Sydney Howard Gay, the polished
writer, boldly advocated instant emancipation. William
J. Bowditch, a scholarly lawyer, used his talent to promote
freedom. With sketches of intelligent Negroes Lydia Maria
Child gave the race a hearing in circles formerly closed.
Thomas Garrett kept the same fires burning in proslavery
Delaware.

Prominent in this group was Samuel May, Jr., who for
some years served efficiently as the general agent of the
Society. When the cause of abolition seemed helpless, May
Samuel May. abandoned a church paying him a lucrative
salary that he might help to save the work, and, says an
historian, "To his perseverance, industry, gentlemanly man
ners and good sense the Society owed much of its success."
Although simple and plain, he was an earnest speaker,
showing such depth of thought that persons concerned with
universal freedom learned to wait upon his words.

Samuel J. May, another abolitionist of almost the same
name, was a philanthropist by nature. He sympathized
with Garrison and assisted in the organization of the So
ciety, being one of the signers of Garrison s " Declaration
of Sentiments," presenting the principles upon which the

Abolition

175

right of man to freedom is based and the call to all men to
promote emancipation. May was one of the few who stood
by Prudence Crandall in Canterbury, Connecticut, when
she was by special enactment imprisoned because she dared
to admit girls of color to her academy. He made his home

a place of refuge for fugi
tive slaves and opened his
church to any intelligent
lecturer who carried the
message of freedom.

To promote this cause a
corps of workers were re
quired to serve as lectur
ers in the field. These had
to do the most difficult
work of win- Antislavery
ning the pub- lecturers,
lie to the movement. Hissed
and jeered by proslavery
sympathizers hurling upon
them rotten eggs, sticks
and stones, these agents un
selfishly performed their
task. Some neither asked
nor received any compen
sation; others gave their
time and paid their own expenses. Among these lecturers
who thus toiled was Abby Kelly Foster, the Joan of
Arc of the antislavery movement. She was a slim but
well proportioned and fine-looking woman of Abby Kelly
bright eyes, clear voice, drawing such life-like Foster,
pictures of the black woman in chains that one could not
hear her without shedding tears. A logical, forceful
speaker, successful with irony or argument and quick at
repartee, Mrs. Foster usually convinced her audience or

PRUDENCE CRANDALL

176

The Negro In Our History

discomfited her opponents. Along with Mrs. Foster went
her faithful husband, Stephen S. Foster. He was one of
those who did not despise the cause in its day of small
things. He labored incessantly to promote the work, and
because of his unusual zeal and honest method of "hewing
to the line and the plum
met" he became the most
unpopular of the antislav-
ery agents. Yet he al
ways told the truth, did
not overstate a question
and usually proved his
point.

There were others scarce
ly less active. The elo
quent Charles C. Bur-
Less active leigh, one of
lecturers. the most suc .

cessful debaters champion
ing the cause of the slave,
would have been almost as
effective as Wendell Phil
lips had he not spoken
rather fast. Burleigh ren
dered the cause much aid
rs a lecturer and the editor

LUNRFORD LAXE, a native of North

Carolina, who lectured in the North

against slavery

of The Pennsylvania Freeman. Lucy Stone, an unpre
possessing but pleasant woman of medium stature, round
face, sparkling eyes, and with her hair cut short, be
came with her abundance of enthusiasm one of the most
rctive abolitionists, moving the people by forceful argu
ments and pathetic appeals. Susan B. Anthony, later
known to greater fame as an advocate of woman suf
frage, stood out as an eloquent abolition speaker with
few equals. Andrew T. Foss left his pulpit to devote

Abolition

177

all of his time to abolition. Sallie Hollie put so much
Scripture and prayer into her appeals that few refused her
a hearing. Oliver Johnson, the ready debater, accom
plished writer and eloquent speaker, not only served on
the platform but at times edited The Herald of Freedom,
The Antislavery Standard, and The Antislavery Bugle.
Henry C. Wright devoted the best years of his life to the
cause. The Grimke sisters, daughters of a prominent citi
zen in Charleston, South Caro
lina, left the South that they
might without interruption bear
witness against slavery. Charles
B. Stebbins, the acute thinker
and able speaker, also decidedly
aided the movement. Nathaniel
P. Rogers, with his penetrating
mind, dealt hard blows at slavery
through The Herald of Freedom.
William Goodell and Theodore F.
Weld exposed the institution by
publishing works on slavery.
James Miller McKim, a promoter

of the Underground Railroad, was once the moving spirit
of the Antislavery Society in Pennsylvania, where he was
ably assisted by the untiring and eloquent Mary Grew.

Abolition was put on its feet in Pennsylvania, however, by
Lucretia Mott. 6 She was a woman of faultless head, thought
ful countenance, beaming eyes, and full voice, hesitant in
speech at the beginning and then growing James and
easily eloquent. Assisted by a husband Lucretia Mott.
giving his means and time to the work, Lucretia Mott stirred
up the people. Abolitionist to the manner born, she endeav
ored to effect a proscription of the products of slave labor
by discouraging the use of clothing and foods produced in

LUCRETIA MOTT

6 A. D. Hallowell, James and Lucretia Mott; Life and Letters.

178

The Negro In Our History

the South. She carried with her, to sweeten her tea, sugar
produced by free labor rather than run the risk of having
to use that produced by slaves. A woman of culture and
conversant with the conditions obtaining among the slaves,
she attracted the attention of the indifferent observer and
impressed upon his mind a new thought of the man far
down. In her attack on
slavery no abolitionist was
more fearless, none more
successful in presenting
the cause.

Yet eloquent as was the
appeal of white men in be
half of the slave the aboli-
Charles L. tionists soon
Remond. realized that

the Negro pleading his own
cause could wield effective
blows against slavery. The
first Negro to be called to
this service was Charles L.
Remond, who, until the rise
of Frederick Douglass, was
probably the ablest repre
sentative of the Negro race. He was small of stature, of
spare build, neat and genteel in appearance. He possessed a
pleasing voice and early attained rank as an acceptable
speaker. A free-born Negro himself, he felt more keenly
the prejudice against his class than he did the persecution
of the slaves, and confined his speeches largely to the desired
change in the attitude of the whites toward the people of
color. So proud was he of being a free man of color that he
often boasted that he had not a drop of slave blood in his
veins. He contributed to newspapers and magazines fre-

CHABLES LENOX REMOND

Abolition

170

quent letters and articles exhibiting- clearness, force, and
depth. It was said that no other man could put more real
meaning in fewer words. Remond, thus equipped for his
task, was employed by the Antislavery Society as a lec
turer for about thirty years. In 1840 he attended the
Convention of the World Antislavery Society in England,
remaining abroad two years to lecture in Great Britain and
Ireland, where he made- a very favorable impression.

Other Negroes were al-
s o successful. William
Wells Brown thus served
the Society from 1843 to
1849, and also Lunsford
Lane of North Carolina,
some years later. So-
journer Truth, by her
mysterious commun-
ings, seemed to acquire
miraculous power as a co-
worker of the abolitionists
to stir audiences with her
heavy voice, quaint lan
guage and homely illustra
tions. But another Negro
thus employed was more
successful. He was not
merely a Negro asking for
the rights of freemen, but
the developed emancipated slave going through the country
as the embodiment of what the slave was and what he might
become. He was then not only the thing discussed by the
abolitionists, but the union of the lecturer Frederick
and his subject. Endowed, too, with philo- Douglass,
sophical insight and broader intellect than most men, he

SOJOURNER TRUTH

180

The Negro In Our History

soon developed an effective oratory with which nature had
enriched his gifts. This man was Frederick Douglass. 7
Unlike Remond, Douglass had much originality and un
adorned eloquence rather than a fine flow of language.
When the country, there
fore, had heard Frederick
Douglass, Remond became
a second-rate man. This
soured the spirit of the lat
ter, who fell a victim of
speaking disparagingly of
his coworker. But Rem
ond was not the only anti-

The success slavery o r a-
of Douglass. tor to p a i e

intd insignificance on the
approach of the "eloquent
fugitive" from slavery in
Maryland; for the people
preferred to hear Douglass.
And well might they de
sire to see and hear this
man. He was tall and well
made, with a fully-devel
oped forehead. He was dignified in appearance, polished in
his language, and gentlemanly in his manner. A contempo
rary said : * He is a man of lofty reason, natural and with
out pretension ; always master of himself ; brilliant in the
art of exposing and abstracting. Another said : "In his
very look, his gesture, his whole manner, there is so much
of genuine, earnest eloquence, that they have no time for re
flection. Now you are reminded of one rushing down some

7 See Frederick Douglass Narrative of the Life of Frederick Doug
lass, as an American Slave, and his Life and Times of Frederick
Douglass from 1811 to 1882.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Abolition 181

fearful steep, bidding you follow; now on some delightful
stream, still beckoning you onward. In either case, no mat
ter what your prepossessions or oppositions, you for the
moment, at least, forget the justness or unjustness of the
cause, and obey the summons, and loath, if at all, you re
turn to your former post."

CHAPTER XII

FURTHER PROTEST

IN the western part of the country, too, abolition was for
economic reasons gradually gaining ground. There had
always been much antislavery sentiment in the mountains
of North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia.
Abolition in When the intolerable condition of the Negroes
the West. j n the South made it impossible for the persons
in that part of the country to do for the Negroes what they
desired, they moved into the Northwest Territory where
they could carry out their plans for the uplift of the blacks.
Accordingly, in these mountains there arose a number of
antislavery societies. Among the persons operating as the
nucleus around which this sentiment developed were such
men as Benjamin Lundy in Tennessee, James G. Birney in
Kentucky, and Daniel R. Goodloe in North Carolina. Other
ideas, too, tended to influence the youth, as it happened in
the case of the students in Maryville College in Tennessee,
more than half of whom had become antislavery by the
year 1841, and in that of Berea College in Kentucky, which
developed from a group of students influenced largely by
In Kentucky. Cassius M. Clay, the antislavery editor, ancfr
John G. Fee, 1 the abolition orator who founded that in
stitution.

As this sentiment tended to spread in the proportion that
the antislavery leaders of the western slave States were
forced to go North, there was made possible a better chance
for abolition in centers where it had been considered danger-

i John G. Fee s Antislavery Manual.

182

Further Protest

SOUTHERN ABOLITIONISTS

BENJAMIN LUNDY DANIEL R. GOODLOE

JAMES G. BIRNEY

.Trmv f\ VW.T?. CASSTTTS ^\F. CT.AY

184 The Negro In Our History

ous. In Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati, the ar
dent discussion of slavery led to a sort of upheaval, result-
Lane ing in a division of the students. Theodore
Seminary. F Weld, one of this group, actually espoused
the cause of Garrison and undertook to translate into action
his theories of Negro uplift by actually teaching colored
children. As Lane Theological Seminary was then attended
by a number of southern students, a separation of those
who had thus become divided was necessary. When the
trustees tried to prevent further discussion of slavery
four-fifths of the students withdrew. Fifty-four asserted
their right to a freedom of discussion of this important
topic, and under leaders like Asa Mahan and John Morgan
retired to the Western Reserve and established Oberlin
College. 2

In that same section of Ohio, however, antislavery so
cieties had already flourished under the leadership of
Samuel Crothers, John Rankin, and Elizur Wright, later a
The Western professor in the Western Reserve College.
Reserve. These antislavery centers, too, were further

strengthened by the coming of James G. Birney 3 from
Kentucky, from which he had been driven because of his
antislavery utterances. He first established in Cincin
nati, Ohio, the Philanthropist, a newspaper which wielded
great influence in preparing the minds of the people of this
country for a fair discussion of slavery, although his life was
several times endangered and his press was twice broken
up and destroyed.

Another group of abolitionists deserve honorable mention.
These were reformers of a milder sort, who could neither
tolerate radicalism nor approve the methods of some of the

2 This is narrated in the First Annual Report of the America**
Anti-Slavery Society.

3 James G. Birney, The American Churches, the Bulwarks of Amer
ican Slavery; and William Birney, James 0. Birney and His Times.

Further Protest

185

less ardent antislavery group. Among those taking this
position was Dr. William Ellery Channing, a Unitarian
minister of much fame in Boston and New- William E.
port. His appeal was to the intellect rather Charming,
than to the emotion. In presenting his case he wrote essays
on slavery, making a forceful argument as to evil of the
institution but suggesting
some remedy other than in
stant abolition. Along with
Channing may be men
tioned scores of writers like
Fredrika Bremer, Frances
Kemble, Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow, James Russell
Lowell, and John G. Whit-
tier.

There were abolitionists
who in addition to appear
ing on the platform other
wise rendered the cause
valuable service. Among
these were Arthur and
Lewis Tappan, successful
merchants of New York,
who had for years sup
ported the cause of coloni
zation but, seeing that it did not reach the root of the
evil, abandoned that movement to promote abolition.
More prominent than these was Gerrit Smith of Peter-
boro, New York, son of an ex-slaveholder. He too, had
at first restricted his efforts at uplifting the Negroes to
what could be effected through the colonization society.
Becoming more interested in the behalf of the Negroes and
also developing in his mind anti-land monopolist tendencies,
he devised the scheme of improving their condition by

GERRIT SMITH

186 The Negro In Our History

transplanting them from the city to small farms in the
country. He therefore addressed a letter to Charles B. Ray,
Dr. J. McCune Smith and Theodore S. Wright, prominent
Negroes of New York City, asking them to designate a num-
Gerrit Smith, her of Negroes whom he might thus colonize
on his lands in certain counties in southeastern New York.
This list was accordingly given and the enterprise under
taken, but because of the infelicity of the soil and the lack
of initiative on the part of the Negroes, it failed.

The more intense the abolition agitation grew, however,
the more sectional the movement became. Backward as the
institution of slavery seemed, the South became more and
more attached to it and would not countenance any attack
The South on it. Not only was the old-time abolitionist
proslavery. in Danger there after 1840, but the ordinary
observer who suggested moral suasion held his social posi
tion by precarious tenure. Cassius M. Clay was driven out
of Lexington, Kentucky, by proslavery citizens who could
not tolerate the antislavery sentiments expressed in his
The True American. Upon receiving some copies of the
Emancipator, which he loaned to white friends while in
Washington, Dr. Reuben Crandall of New York was ar
rested and imprisoned on the charge of inciting a riot
among the slaves but, after waiting trial eight months in
jail, he was declared not guilty. Not knowing the temper
of the South, an English traveling bookseller was whipped
and driven out of Petersburg, Virginia, in 1832, because
he dared to say at the time of the Nat Turner insurrection
excitement that the blacks as men were entitled to their
freedom and should be emancipated. Amos Dresser, a
student of Lane Seminary and of Oberlin College, was
whipped and expelled from the State of Tennessee because,
while selling books imthat State, he had a copy of the Eman
cipator wrapped around a Bible left in a Nashville hotel.

Abolition in the South, therefore, ceased to be openly

Further Protest 187

agitated. The radicalism of Garrison tended to solidify
the South against the struggle for free institutions. His
advice to Negroes to educate their children, to build up
their own trades, aid the fugitives, and to Abolition
qualify as voters, stirred up the South; for quelled in
there it was believed that if both races were fc e { &gt;outlL
free, one would have to be driven out by the other or ex
terminated. Southerners caused alarm by the false rumor
that the abolitionists advocated the amalgamation of the
races, although Jay did not think that white men would
have to select black wives and John Rankin disclaimed any
such desire for miscegenation, while Channing thought we
have no right to resist it and it is not unnatural. South
erners were successful, too, in promoting their cause by
raising the complaint of the circulation of incendiary pub
lications portraying by pictures, cuts and drawings, the
cruelties of slavery to acquaint the bondmen with the awful
state to which they were reduced. These publications,
however, because of the crass ignorance in which most
Negroes were kept, as a rule, never reached them. With
the exception of a few like Samuel Green, a free Negro, in
Maryland, who was sent to the Maryland penitentiary for
having in his home a copy of Uncle Tom s Cabin, there were
not many instances of Negroes making use of these publi
cations.

Moderate abolitionists in the South thereafter either
abandoned their plan or cooperated with the colonizationists
in seeking an opportunity for the national development
of the Negro abroad. Radical abolitionists Martyrdom of
either left for the North or remained in the abolitionists.
South to entice Negroes to escape from their masters by
way of the Underground Railroad. As this was a rather
dangerous risk in the South where such was heavily penal
ized, many of these persons almost suffered martyrdom in
behalf of the fugitives. Jonathan Walker was branded

188 The Negro In Our History

with a hot iron for aiding the escape of a slave. In 1841
Thompson, Burr and Burke, abolitionists from Illinois,
were sentenced to serve a term in the Missouri penitentiary
for persuading slaves to escape from the town of Palmyra.
In 1844 L. W. Paine, a Rhode Island machinist working in
Georgia, was thus imprisoned six years for the same offense.
John L. Brown was, in 1846, condemned to be hanged for
aiding 1 fugitives, but the sentence was commuted to a whip
ping. Daniel Drayton, captain of a vessel upon which he
permitted seventy-seven slaves to escape from their masters
in the District of Columbia, lost his health while he was
being almost starved there in confinement in an unsanitary
prison cell. Another of these sympathizers, Delia Webster,
a young lady from Vermont, teaching in Kentucky to find
an opportunity for thus aiding fugitives, was sent to the
penitentiary for two years. Calvin N. Fairbank, her ac
complice, was sentenced to serve a term of fifteen years
in the State prison. When pardoned by Governor John J.
Crittenden, he immediately resumed his work in defiance of
law and public opinion, and in 1852 was imprisoned the
second time for fifteen years. He was not released until
1864, when the sympathetic Acting Governor Richard T.
Jacobs, taking advantage of the absence of Governor Bram-
lette, pardoned Fairbank. Charles T. Torrey, a graduate
of Yale and Andover Theological Seminary, went to An
napolis to report a slaveholders convention, for which he
was arrested and required to give bond for his good be
havior. Some years later, upon being charged with having
assisted a slave in escaping from his master, Torrey was
convicted and imprisoned in a Maryland penitentiary, in
which he died.

Exactly what the abolitionists accomplished is difficult
to estimate. Some are of the opinion that the radicals
did the cause of emancipation more harm than good. Few
white men of that day felt that the slaves could be in-

Further Protest

WHITE MARTYRS IN THE CAUSE OF ABOLITION
DANIEL DRAYTON L. W. PAINE

CALVIN FAIRBANK CHARLES T. TORREY

190 The Negro In Our History

stantly emancipated. Most advocates of freedom had
thought of gradual methods, and the radical reformers who
stirred up the whole country with the idea of immediate
Achievements abolition set the conservatives against eman-
of the ^ cipation. The agitation itself, however, was
hopeful. It showed that the country had de
veloped a feeling of nationalism. A man living in Boston
had begun to think that to some extent he was responsible
for an evil obtaining in South Carolina. Leaders of thought
were no longer content to leave it to the various States to
decide for themselves whether or not an evil should be
tolerated within their limits. Slavery had become so en
grafted upon the country as to require national attention
and national treatment. It resulted, therefore, in inciting a
large number of antislavery people to greater activity and
enabled the abolition societies to unify their efforts through
out the North by organizing and stimulating local bodies, all
of which helped to make possible the destruction of slavery.
In the beginning their struggle was a hard one, but they
had, after 1836, gained considerable ground. In the first
Radical place, the North did not take seriously the

abolition. agitation for the abolition of slavery in a sec
tion closely connected with its financial and manufacturing
centers. Others, who had no such interests, moreover, re
garded the abolition agitation as a direct attack on the
Union, in that the provision for the continuance of slavery
in the Constitution was attacked ; and citizens in Southern
States, considering these attacks as intended to disturb the
peace in their commonwealths, declared that it furnished
sufficient ground for withdrawal from the Union. In sev
eral of the Northern States, therefore, legislation was pro
posed to penalize discussions "calculated to excite insurrec
tion among the slaves," as an offense against the peace of
the State. Some undertook to brand the efforts of the aboli
tionists as acts of sedition. As the abolitionists made good

Further Protest 191

their right of free speech, however, they were not ham
pered in the North by such laws.

As it was therefore necessary for the opponents of the
abolitionists to express themselves in some other way, they
resorted to mob violence. During the years from 1834 to
1836 about twenty-five or thirty efforts were made to break
up abolition meetings. There was an anti- Antiaboli-
abolition riot at Clinton Hall in New York in tion riots -
1833. Then followed a number of riots, culminating in
the destruction of the property of the abolitionists in 1834,
when the same sort of violence broke out in Utica, New
York. When George Thompson, the experienced spokes
man of the abolitionists in England, came to this country
to further the cause, and had himself advertised to speak
in Boston, the so-called friends of the Union organized a
mob, but Thompson, having had notice as to what they
hoped to do, failed to appear. William Lloyd Garrison,
who had the courage to attend, found himself in the midst
of a riotous crowd whom the mayor, despite his efforts,
could not control. When the mayor made known his in
ability to control the mob, the crowd ran Garrison down,
put a rope around his body and pulled him through the
streets of Boston. "The man," said an observer, "walked
with head erect, flashing eyes, like a martyr going to the
stake, full of faith and manly hope. To save his life, the
mayor sent Garrison to the Charles Street jail, where he
was with some difficulty rescued from the mob.

In Pennsylvania, in which the large city of Philadelphia
offered many reasons for close commercial attachment to
the South, the cause of abolition had much opposition, de
spite the healthy antislavery sentiment among the Quak
ers. As the city of Philadelphia was being Disorder in
rapidly filled up at this time with Germans Pennsylvania,
and Scotch-Irish, who observed the prosperity of migrating
freedmen with a covetous eye, these business men could by

192 The Negro In Our History

a very little encouragement to the disorderly crowd bring
about a riot, especially so when the city was very poorly
policed. A mob disgraced the city in 1834 by beating up
a number of Negroes and damaging fifty-four houses. It
was somewhat difficult thereafter to find a place for abo
lition meetings. Negro churches closed their doors to these
agitators, not because they could not appreciate the impetus
the abolitionists gave the cause of freedom, but, knowing
that any building in which an abolition meeting was held
might be burned, the Negroes had to exercise precaution.
To solve this problem, the abolitionists constructed a build
ing of their own, known as Pennsylvania Hall, but when it
was noised abroad that Garrison and other abolitionists had
addressed a meeting there, on May 16, 1838, there was
formed a mob which broke open the doors, set fire to the
building, and prevented the authorities from extinguishing
the flames. Pittsburgh had such an outbreak the following
year.

In the western part of the United States, where the abo
litionists were equally bold, the same sort of riotous con
dition obtained. In 1836 a mob, long since enraged because
Riots In of the advocacy of abolition in the Philanthro-

the West. pist, edited by James G. Birney, destroyed his
office and made desperate efforts to take his life. In Alton,
Illinois, the place in which Elijah P. Lovejoy had sought
refuge for his abolition efforts, when he had been forced to
leave St. Louis for criticizing the burning of a Negro at
the stake, the same violence broke out. After his press had
been twice destroyed, his building was attacked by a mob
on November 7, 1837. He returned their fire but, on wait
ing patiently on the outside for the exit of Lovejoy some
time thereafter, the mob shot him dead. The jury ap
pointed to inquire into the guilt of the offenders required
only ten minutes to bring in a verdict of not guilty.

Instead of preventing the rise of abolition, as was

Further Protest

193

expected, these efforts rather tended to increase the senti
ment in the North against slavery. In some of the State
legislatures there began to appear a number of antislavery
members, and very soon even in Congress. Results of
John P. Hale first took a stand against slavery Tiots -
in the Senate. In 1838 there came to Congress the down
right abolitionist, Joshua R. Giddings of the Western Re
serve. William Slade of
Vermont, an antislavery
man, was sent to that body
in 1840. There appeared,
too, Thomas Morris,
a United States Senator
from Ohio, who rendered
the cause much assistance.
The abolitionists then had
the opportunity to gain na
tional recognition as a
body primarily interested
in promoting the moral
life and atmosphere of the
country. But they were
far apart in their method
of procedure, and radical
utterances denouncing the
Constitution as a proslav-
ery document, while others
argued that it was antislavery, did their cause unusual
harm.

Salmon P. Chase insisted that the Constitution is an anti-
slavery document, making the institution a black forgery.
Replying to the arguments of the proslavery R adical
element that slavery was maintained by the leaders
Federal Constitution, some others, although increased -
not advocates of instant abolition, insisted that a higher

SENATOR JOHN P. HALE

194 The Negro In Our History

law than the Constitution protested against the action of
Congress on this point. According to the law of human
nature "no greater crime against human beings can be
committed than to make him a slave. While Garrison, in
1835, called God to witness that the abolitionists were not
hostile to the Constitution 4 of the United States, in 1843
he declared "that the compact which exis.ts between the
North and the South is a covenant with death and an
agreement with Hell, involving both parties in atrocious
criminality, and should be immediately annulled." There
still remained milder abolitionists like. William Jay and
Channing, who disavowed the extreme theory. The cause
of abolition, however, continued to suffer, for it had not
only failed to interest a majority of the people in the North
but had furnished sufficient radicalism upon which the pro-
slavery spokesmen could stir up the country with threats
of disunion, and terrorize the gradual emancipationists in
the South.

4 See the appeal of a Southern matron in the Appendix.

CHAPTER XIII

SLAVERY AND THE CONSTITUTION

DURING these years, important constitutional questions
grew out of the encroachment of slavery and its haughty
pretension to national precedence. The abolitionists had,
by 1830, become unusually aggressive and were organizing
throughout the country to make a bold at- The right of
tack on the institution. They were then petition,
presenting to the State legislatures and Congress various
petitions asking, among other things, for the abolition of
slavery in the District of Columbia. These petitions at first
were received and then refused favorabje consideration.
They had in the course of time been more easily disposed
of by merely being referred to a committee which permitted
them to die a natural death. Upon the occasion, however,
of a petition of John Quincy Adams, long known as the
only spokesman in behalf of free speech in Congress, the
House voted to refuse such petitioners a hearing. This
implied that a reasonable portion of the citizens of the
United States were denied the right of petition j hn Quincy
guaranteed by the Constitution of the United Adams.
States. 1 Adams contended that these petitions must be
received, heard, and referred to a committee, but when, he

i John W. Burgess, Middle Period, Chs. IV, X, XI, XIII, XVIII,
XX; J. B. McMaster, History of the United States, VIII, pp. 473-
521, 438-512; James Schouler, History of the United States, V, 389-
433; T. C. Smith, Parties and Slavery, passim; James F. Rhodes,
History of the United States, III, IV, V, VI; William MacDonald,
Select Statutes I, 343, 365-372, 385-300, 397-454; II, 35-38, 42-43, 113;
A. B. Hart, American History Told by Contemporaries, III, 574-655;
IV, 122-192.

195

196

The Negro In Our History

insisted that there should be a report from the committee
and a vote upon that report it looked too much like an
insult from the antislavery party. He was, therefore, cen
sured by the proslavery element in the House. 2

It is well to keep in mind, however, that Adams was
not an antislavery man. His career had shown proslavery
tendencies. 3 In the Senate, in 1807, when the prohibition of
The record the slave trade was brought before that body,
of Adams. j^ V oted against the measure. As a member
of the mission negotiating the treaty with Great Britain,

by which the War of 1812
was closed, he demanded
compensation for slaves
who had been carried
away from their masters
by the British Army.
During his incumbency as
Secretary of State he was
unfriendly to the proposal
of Great Britain for a
slave trade treaty in the
interest of the Africans,
and as President he mani
fested no particular inter
est in the bondmen.
Throughout his struggle
for the right of petition in Congress, therefore, he was in
terested, not in the work of abolitionists but in defending
the right of the people of his section to free speech.

"When the House, in 1835, tabled an antislavery petition
presented by John Quincy Adams, Henry A. Wise of Vir-

2 John W. Burgess, The Middle Period; A. B. Hart, Slavery and
Abolition; and Herman von Hoist, Constitutional and Political His
tory of the United States.

3 See the speech of John Quincy Adams quoted in the Appendix.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, the cham
pion of free speech

Slavery and the Constitution 197

ginia took occasion to remark: "Sir, slavery interwoven
with our very political institution is guaranteed by our Con
stitution, and its consequences must be borne Henry A.
by our northern brethren as resulting from Wise,
our system of government, and they cannot attack the
institution of slavery without attacking the institutions of
the country, our safety and welfare." In December of
that same year Slade of Vermont took occasion to remark
that as a constitutional right an abolition petition should
be printed, and that Congress had power to prohibit slavery
in the District of Columbia. He believed, moreover, that
the progress of abolition must be necessary to preserve the
balance of the situation or, rather, to restore it. When a
few days later two other such petitions were presented by
Morris of Ohio and Buchanan of Pennsylvania, John C.
Calhoun declared such a memorial "a foul slander on
nearly one-half of the States of the Union," and urged
"that a stop be put to that agitation which had prevailed
in so large a section of the country and which, unless
checked, would endanger the extension of the Union. Con
gress did not grant the desire of John C. Calhoun, but did
vote to reject the prayer of the petition.

Southern members immediately thereafter secured a spe
cial "gag rule" that all petitions, memorials, resolutions,
propositions or papers relating in any way or to any extent
whatever to the subject of slavery or the "Gag Rule."
abolition of slavery should without being either printed or
referred be laid upon the table and that no further action
whatever should be had thereon. The proslavery advocates
had taken the advanced position that Congress could not
legislate on slavery in the District of Columbia and that
the wishes of the slave States bordering on the District of
Columbia took precedence over the power of Congress to
legislate for the District, although the Constitution provides
that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of

198 The Negro In Our History

speech or the rights of the people peaceably to assemble or
to petition the government for the redress of grievances.
Adams, therefore, held the resolution to be a direct viola
tion of the Constitution of the United States and the rules
of the House and of the rights of his constituents.

A new stage in the discussion of the right of petition
in Congress was reached when, in 1837, there were pre
sented resolutions from Vermont legislature praying that
A petition slavery be abolished in the District of Colum-
from a State. ^ a j s j n accordance with the southern idea
of State rights, no State could be questioned in presenting
any petition to Congress, although citizens might be re
strained therefrom, Rhett of South Carolina summoned to
his support his southern coworkers to devise a plan for
peaceably dissolving the Union. They finally agreed, how
ever, to undertake the enactment of a law providing for a
more successful "gag rule," which declared it "the solemn
duty of the government to resist all attempts by one portion
to use it as an instrument to attack the democratic institu-
x- tions of another.

At this time Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, two of
the weakest men in this country, were dodging the slavery
question, although they saw the encroachment of the slave
power upon the rights guaranteed the individual in the
Webster and Constitution. Henry Clay, who declared that
O la y- he was not a friend of slavery, preferring

rather freedom for all men, nevertheless considered the
petitions for the abolition of slavery "a great practical in
convenience and annoyance," from which he hoped the
people in the North would desist. In 1830 Daniel Webster
considered domestic slavery one of the greatest evils, both
moral and political. In 1836 he felt that it was the duty
of Congress to take care that the authority of this govern
ment was not brought to bear upon slavery by any indirect
interference. He later announced that as to slavery he

Slavery and the Constitution

199

Calhoun, the
pro slavery
leader.

would do nothing to favor or encourage its further exten
sion. Yet with regard to abolition he felt that it had taken
such strong hold on the consciences of men that, if it were
coerced into silence, he knew nothing even in the Constitu
tion or in the Union itself which would not be endangered
by the explosion which might follow. Hoping to become
president, he later tended to become neutral, and bartered

his birthright by an un
successful attempt t o
swallow the Fugitive
Slave Law of 1850.

Growing bolder from
year to year, the South
during this
period fin
ally became

solidly organized under
the leadership of John
C. Calhoun, who had de
parted from his early
position of nationalism
to defend the institution
of slavery. In 1836 he
boldly declared that
"Congress has no legiti-
n^ate jurisdiction over

the subject of slavery either in the District of Colum
bia or elsewhere. " 4 He believed, that the abolitionists
had no right to discuss slavery at all, that Congress should
pass affirmative laws for the protection of slaveholders
against abolition by mail and that the Northern States
should be prohibited from engaging in the agitation. He
insisted that "the conflicting elements would burst the
Union asunder, powerful as are the links that hold it to-

JOHN C. CALHOUN

See Appendix for J. II. Gidd.ings s attack, on this policy.

200

The Negro In Our History

gether. Abolition and the Union cannot coexist ; come what
will, should it cost every drop of blood and every cent of
property, we must defend ourselves."

As the State of Texas, developed under direction of pro-
slavery men led by Samuel Austin and Samuel Houston,
became an independent slaveholding section desiring an-
The Texas nexation to the Union, Calhoun found for the
question. South a safety valve in championing the de
sirable policy of expansion. This extension of our territory
, could not be easily de
feated, although the pur
pose was to secure slave
territory. Joshua R. Gid-
dings, the first militant
abolition member of Con
gress, however, showed in
a speech attacking slav
ery, in 1841, exactly how
the admission of Texas
would increase the power
of the South and effect the
economic history of the
whole country. 5

Many constitutional dif
ficulties were encountered
after some of the States
had abolished slavery. The
South continued to have trouble with fugitives escaping
The return from its ports. It was always easy, moreover,
of fugitives. f or a f ew s } aves to arrange with the Negro
cooks and stewards on vessels to conceal them as cargo and
deliver them to some agent of the Underground Railroad on
arriving in the North. In 1837 the schooner Susan, sailing
from Georgia, permitted a Negro stowaway to escape on

6 See Giddings s speech in the Appendix.

JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS

Slavery and the Constitution

FRIENDS OF THE FUGITIVES

JOHN NEEDLES ABIGAIL GOODWIN

GRACE ANXE LEWIS ])ANIEL CIBBOXS

202

The Negro In Our History

reaching a port in Maine. The State of Georgia preferred
charges against the officers of the ship and undertook to take
them into custody, but the Governor of Maine refused to
honor the requisition on the grounds that they had left
Georgia before they were charged with the crime. Three

sailors coming into New
York with the slave they
helped to escape from Nor
folk in 1839, were simi
larly protected by Gover
nor William H. Seward,
who despised the institu
tion of slavery. This
caused a prolonged contro
versy between the chief ex
ecutives of the two States
and the expression of much
bitter feeling on both sides.
Virginia finally passed a
law requiring the inspec
tion of all vessels bound
for New York. Missis
sippi, taking up her cause,
proposed "to unite with
other States in any measure of resistance or redress."
Because of the disturbances resulting from the Negro
insurrection in 1822, South Carolina passed certain Negro
Seamen Acts" requiring all Negroes on vessels to go to jail
Seamen on arriving in port and to remain there until

Acts - their vessels set sail again. These acts were

earnestly protested against by Northern States and by Eng
land, all of which had constant commercial intercourse
with South Carolina. The measures were relaxed with ref
erence to England, but with respect to the Northern States
they continued as law, Thinking that it would be advisable

WILLIAM H. SEWAED

Slavery and the Constitution 203

to make a test case of this legislation, antislavery members
of the Massachusetts legislature sent Samuel Hoar to inter
cede in behalf of a Negro thus deprived of his rights in that
State. Upon arrival Hoar was notified that his life
was in danger for the reason that he was an agent coming-
in not as a citizen of the United States but as an emissary
of a foreign government hostile to the domestic institutions
and with the sole purpose of subverting its internal policy.

The South undertook also to indict as criminals against
the laws of the States persons who, although they did not
come within the limits of the States, had by way of mail
or message incited insurrection or aided slaves Attacks on
to escape from their masters. William Lago, slavery,
a free Negro, was thus indicted in Kentucky. The
Supreme Court decided that the governor of the State
had a moral right to surrender Lago, but that the Federal
Government had no power to compel him to do so. Joseph
P. Mahan, a Methodist minister of Brown County, Ohio,
was indicted by a grand jury of Kentucky for having
aided the escape of certain slaves. Upon receiving a requi
sition from the Governor of Kentucky, the Governor of
Ohio issued a warrant for the arrest of the minister. Not
long after, however, the Governor of Ohio became con
vinced that the warrant had been issued without authority
because Mahan had never been in Kentucky. The grand
jury of Tuscaloosa County thus indicted R. G. Williams of
New York in 1835, and the chief executive called upon Gov
ernor Marcy of New York to surrender him. The requi
sition was refused for the reason that Marcy could not see
how a man could be guilty of a crime in Alabama when he
had never been there. Rewards were offered for abolition
ists like Arthur Tappan, and the State of Georgia appro
priated $5,000 as a reward for William Lloyd Garrison, the
editor of the Liberator.

This same assumption of authority in the defense of

The Negro In Our History

PROMOTERS OF THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
WILLIAM WRIGHT E. F. PENNYPACKER

SAMUEL RHOADS
J. M. McKiM JOHN HEM AN

JOHN HENRY HILL
WM. H. FUBXISS BARTHOLOMEW FUSSELL

Slavery and the Constitution 205

slavery extended also to the search of the mails for incen
diary matter sent by the abolitionists to slaves and their
sympathizers in the South. Because of the Searching
annoyance from which the South had suffered tne mails -
therefrom, Calhoun introduced, in 1836, a bill providing
that mail matter other than letters touching the subject
of slavery should not be delivered in any State prohibiting
the circulation of such matter. Congress, however, could
not pass such a law, since many States had not prohibited
the circulation of such matter. The matter was settled
by a general search of the mails throughout the South, just
as is done today in the time of war.

There arose also the question as to what effect on the
status of the slave would his removal to a free State have
and if, according to the law of that State it worked his
manumission, would he be free on his return Removal to
to the slave State from which he went. In a free State.
Massachusetts slavery was forbidden for any cause, whereas
in Missouri and Louisiana it was held that a freedman vol
untarily returning to his master reverted to slavery. In
diana gave the master the right of transit with his slaves in
that State. In Pennsylvania, however, it was not allowed.
When John H. Wheeler of North Carolina passed through
that State on his way to New York, from which he was to
proceed to Nicaragua, Passmore Williamson informed
Jane Johnson, the attending servant, that she was free
under the laws of that State, and the courts upheld that
opinion.

During the darkest days of slavery when many of them
escaped to the Northern States, however, in spite of senti
ment to the contrary, masters hunted them down in the
North, demanding of the local courts their Personal
return to slavery. The local courts often re- Liberty Laws,
fused to carry out these mandates, and certain Northern
States passed personal liberty laws to impede these efforts

206 The Negro In Our History

by .granting alleged fugitives a trial by jury. In Vermont
and New York local officials were deprived of jurisdiction
in such cases, and State attorneys were required to act as
legal advisers for Negroes thus accused. Ohio, however,
egged on by the mob cruelly treating free Negroes migrating
from the South to that State, enacted in 1839 a Fugitive
Slave Law more drastic than the Federal measure of 1793.
Some excitement was caused in 1837, however, when a
Kentucky slave, Matilda, who, without being asked any
questions, entered the service of James G. Birney at Cin
cinnati, was claimed and surrendered as a fugitive. In 1840
John Van Zandt was, despite the appeal to the Supreme
Court by such valuable counsellors as Salmon P. Chase and
William H. Seward, fined $1,200 because he rescued one of
nine slaves who had escaped to the other side of the Ohio
River.

An epoch was reached in the execution of the Fugitive
Slave Law, however, when Edward Prigg of Maryland un
dertook to return from Pennsylvania the fugitive Margaret
The Prigg Morgan. Because Prigg seized her without
Case&gt; first instituting proceedings in the courts of

the State he was arrested for violating the Pennsylvania
statute against kidnapping. Upon appealing to the United
States Supreme Court, however, the opinion was given that
the owner had a right to recover the slave but that the
act of 1793 could not be construed as making its execution
an obligation of the State officials. Following this decision
John Shaw of Boston refused not long thereafter to grant
a writ of habeas corpus in accordance with the State per
sonal liberty law to remove Latimer, a fugitive, from cus-
The Lattmer tody of the Federal authorities. There fol-
Case lowed such a storm of protest, however, such

an array of abolitionists against the authorities thus admin
istering the law, that an observer of the trend of the times
could easily see that feeling was running too high to calm

Slavery and the Constitution 207

the people of the North who were then openly resisting the
execution of Federal law. The southern people bore
it as a grievance, therefore, that the enemies of their basic
institution could by the application of personal liberty laws
deprive them of their property. They urged, therefore,
the enactment of a more stringent measure which eventually
culminated in the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of
1850.

CHAPTER XIV

THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT

SLAVERY became more troublesome for the United States
at home when it involved the country in entanglements
abroad. The British Government gradually emancipated
International **& slaves in the colonies after 1833, and there
entangle- was a tendency on the part of slaves and their
sympathizers to seek refuge in those parts
when carried on the high seas. For years very little effort
had been made to stop the numerous violations of the slave
trade, despite the fact that European governments had
repeatedly called upon the United States to unite with them
to abolish this traffic in men. When the ship Comet, in 1831,
carrying slaves, and bound for the United States, was
wrecked at the Bahamas, they were brought ashore and
set free on the ground that the British Government did not
recognize slavery on the high seas. Similar instances oc
curred in the case of the Encomium in 1835, and the Enter
prise and the Hermosa in 1840. The United States Gov
ernment promptly demanded an indemnity, contending
Slavery on that the accidental presence of the vessels in
the high seas. British waters did not interfere with the
relation of master and slave ; but, doubtless for the reason
that emancipation was not at that time completed in the
West Indies, Great Britain granted the United States, in
1840, an indemnity of $115,000 for the slaves of the Comet
and Encomium, but nothing was granted for the others.

208

The Irrepressible Conflict

209

The only consolation our government received was to declare
it a violation of international law for which no redress
could be obtained.

There took place, moreover, a number of mutinies of
slaves on the high seas, which, the proslavery element be
lieved, required intervention on the part of the United
States. One of the most significant of these L Amistad.
cases was that of the Amistad. There were on board the
schooner fifty-four Negroes who were being carried coast
wise from Havana to Neu-
vitas on the island of Cuba
in 1839. Under the leader
ship of the African, Joseph
Cinque, the Negroes mur
dered the passengers and
the crew with the excep
tion of two Spaniards
spared to steer the vessel
toward freedom. After
roaming on the high seas
a few days, the vessel came
ashore for water and pro
visions at Culloden Point
on the east end of Long
Island, and was espied and
taken possession of a short

while thereafter by Cap-

, . ^ ^ n, ,, TT .. , JOSEPH CINQUE

tarn Gedney of the United

States Navy. Joseph Cinque, the leader, undertook to es
cape, but finally yielded. The captives were then brought
before the United States Circuit Court in Connecticut, pre
sided over by Andrew T. Judson. As the proceedings
lasted for some months, Cinque and his companions were
turned over to certain abolition teachers, who so thoroughly
grounded him in the fundamentals of education that he

210

The Negro In Our History

developed into a man of considerable intelligence, show
ing natural ability as an orator. The outcome of the case
was that although Van Buren was ready to remand them,
the Supreme Court on appeal decided that the Negroes
being free when they left Havana were violating no law
in killing those trying to enslave them. They were there
fore set free.

The mutiny of the slaves on the Creole, en route from
Richmond to New Orleans, in 1841, gave rise to another
Congressional inquiry in which
the right of the United States to
exercise authority over slaves on
the high seas was questioned.
Under the leadership of Madison
Washington, who had made his
The Creole escape from slavery
Case. j n Yi r gi n i a to Can

ada, but on returning to rescue
his wife had been captured and
sent South for sale, one hundred
and thirty-four slaves overpow
ered the officers of the vessel,
killed one, and directed the ship

to the British port Nassau, where CHARLES SUMNER a fear
less advocate of democracy
they were held to await instruc
tions from the British government. When proslavery men
in Congress sought to have these Negroes returned to their
masters on the ground that they were legally held at the
time of their departure, Charles Sumner * insisted that the
slaves became free when taken, by the voluntary action of
their owners, beyond the jurisdiction of the slave States.
On the other hand, Daniel Webster, then Secretary of State,
contended that inasmuch as slaves were recognized as prop
erty by the Constitution of the United States, where slavery

1 See Appendix for Simmer s ideas.

The Irrepressible Conflict 211

existed, their presence on the high seas did not effect a
change in their status. The matter between Great Britain
was drawn out into ten years of negotiations and was finally
settled in 1853 by arbitration with the provision that the
British Government should pay an indemnity of $110,000
for having permitted these Negroes to go free.

To combat this view Joshua R. Giddings, an antislavery
member of Congress, offered in connection with this case in
1842 resolutions to the effect that * slavery, being an abridg
ment of the natural rights of man, can exist only by force
or positive municipal law." 2 Botts of Vir- Giddings
ginia thereupon secured the adoption of a res- Resolution,
olution to the effect that "this House hold the conduct of
said member altogether unwarranted and unwarrantable,
and deserving the severe condemnation of the people of this
country and of this body in particular." Giddings was,

2 Giddings resolutions were:

1. Resolved, That, prior to the adoption of our Federal Consti
tution each of the several States composing this Union exercised full
and exclusive jurisdiction over the subject of slavery within its own
territory, and possessed full power to continue or abolish it at
pleasure.

2. Resolved, That, by adopting the Constitution, no part of the
aforesaid powers were delegated to the Federal Government, but were
reserved by and still pertain to each of the several States.

3. Resolved, That, by the 8th section of the 1st article of the
Constitution, each of the several States surrendered to the Federal
Government all jurisdiction over the subjects of commerce and
navigation upon the high seas.

4. Resolved, That Slavery, being an abridgement of the natural
right of man, can exist only by force of positive municipal law, and
is necessarily confined to the territorial jurisdiction of the power
creating it.

5. Resolved, That when a ship belonging to the citizens of any
State enters upon the high seas, the persons on board cease to be
subject to the slave laws of sucli State, and therefore, are governed
in their relations to each other by, and are amenable to, the laws
of the United States.

6. Resolved, That when the brig Creole, on her late passage for
New Orleans, left the territorial jurisdiction of Virginia, the slave
laws of that State ceased to have jurisdiction over the persons on

212 The Negro In Our History

therefore, twice censured by the proslavery Congress. To
show the attachment of his district to free institutions,
however, he resigned and appealed to his constituents in
the Western Reserve, who immediately returned him that
he might introduce these resolutions again.

The interpretation of the constitution was again appealed
to when, in the development of the proslavery policy which
dominated this country up to the Civil War, the South
The Wilmot actually forced the country into a struggle
Proviso. W j t j 1 ]y[ ex i co ^ o acquire territory for the ex

tension of slavery. A rather serious question arose when
an act appropriating money for the purchase of territory
from Mexico was blocked by David Wilmot s amendment
providing that in the territory to be thus acquired slavery
should be forever prohibited. This amendment caused much
trouble years thereafter; for, introduced from session to

board said brig, and such persons became amenable only to the laws
of the United States.

7. Resolved, That the persons on board the said ship, in re
suming their natural rights of personal liberty, violated no law of
the United States, and are incompatible with our national honor.

8. Resolved, That all attempts to regain possession of or to re-
enslave said persons are unauthorized by the Constitution or laws
of the United States, and are incompatible with our national honor.

9. Resolved, That, all attempts to exert our national influence
in favor of the coastwise slave trade, or to place this nation in the
attitude of maintaining a "commerce in human beings," are sub
versive of the rights and injurious to the feelings of the free States,
are unauthorized by the Constitution, and prejudicial to our national
character.

See Text of the resolutions in House Journal, 27th Con., 2d Sess. ;
for the resolution of censure, ib., p. 580. For the discussions see the
Cong. Globe, or Benton s Abridgment, XIV. The diplomatic corre
spondence regarding the Creole is in the House Exec. Doc. 2, 27th
Cong., 3d Sess., pp. 114-123, and Senate Doc. 1, pp. 116-125. See also
von Hoist s United States, II, 479-486; J. Q. Adams s Memoirs, .XI,
113-115; Wilson s Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, I, Chap. 31;
Benton s Thirty Years View, II, Chap. 98.

The work of this statesman is treated in Byron R. Long s
Joshua R. Giddings, A Champion of Political Freedom and H
George W. Julians Life of Joshua R. Giddings. See also J. B
Moore s International Arbitrations, I, 417.

The Irrepressible Conflict 213

session, it became the nemesis of the proslavery party in
quest of new territory. The proviso evoked from the pro-
slavery advocates the claim that Congress had no right to
legislate on this question and that the question of slavery
should be decided by those persons who would settle in
the said territory.

About the year 1850, when the antislavery agitation was
at its height and the various laws of interest to the many
contending elements emerged in the form of the Omnibus
Bill, several constitutional questions of importance were
raised. There came up the question of the The crisis
admission of California, the paying of certain of 185 -
Texas claims, the organization of territory acquired from
Mexico, the abolition of the slave trade in the District of
Columbia, and the provision for a more effective fugitive
slave law. The friends of slavery objected to having the
State of California admitted without passing through the
territorial probation period, and did not agree with Henry
Clay, who contended that slavery in that State illegally
existed. They believed that slavery existed everywhere
unless it had been positively prohibited by law. Many
northerners objected to paying claims incurred by the
acquisition of slave territory and were not disposed to
hurry up with the organization of slave States to be formed
therefrom. 3 As to the prohibition of slavery in the District
of Columbia, the southerners were still of the opinion that
the Constitution had not given Congress any power to legis
late regarding slavery. On the other hand, the friends of
freedom were of the opinion that the proposed fugitive slave
law intended to impress into the service of slave-catching
men who had no inclination to perform such a task, that it
interfered with a man s rights as a citizen, and that it was
unconstitutional because it did not guarantee the suspects
any right of trial by jury and did not permit a fugitive to

s This is well expressed by Giddings s speech in the Appendix.

214

The Negro In Our History

testify in his own behalf. In the midst of so many conflict
ing efforts to bring about a compromise between two mili
tant sections, far-sighted men like William H. Seward 4 and
Henry Ward Beecher saw no hope for peace in the Omnibus
Bill.

A more interesting constitutional question arose some
years later when out of
the territory in the West
it was proposed to organize
Kansas and Nebraska with
out regard to slavery. Ste
phen A. Douglas, the cham
pion of this movement,
seemed to stultify him-

The Kansas- self in trvin g
Nebraska to harmonize
Question. hig theory rf

squatter sovereignty with
that of the freedom of the
people in determining for
themselves how the new
commonwealth should come
into the Union. How
Douglas could make it pos-

HENEY

a champion

sible for a man to take his
slaves wherever he would

and still hold them as goods and chattels, while at the same
time the law would guarantee to the people in a new com
monwealth when framing the Constitution the right to de
cide for themselves whether or not the State should be
free, was never satisfactorily explained to the increasing
number of antislavery men.

The most formidable of all of these protagonists, how
ever, was not among the first to appear. He was a back-

4 See Appendix for Seward s Higher Law.

The Irrepressible Conflict 215

woodsman born in Kentucky and developed to manhood in
Indiana and Illinois. As a rail-splitter he could understand
the hardships entailed upon those compelled Lincoln on
to engage in drudgery. When a young man slavery,
he went on a flat boat on a trading trip to New Orleans. On
the market square he saw human beings auctioned off like
cattle, and being deeply impressed with the evil thereof he
said to himself that if he ever had a chance to strike slavery
he would strike it and would strike it hard. Some years
later, when Elijah Lovejoy was killed at Alton, Illinois, by
the proslavery leaders because of his diatribes hurled at
the bold defenders of that institution, the legislature of
the State passed a resolution which seemingly condoned
that murder. Thereupon this representative joined with
Daniel Stone in a protest to the effect that "they believed
that the institution of slavery is founded on both injustice
and bad policy. This man was Abraham Lincoln. 5

Against all temporizing and compromising efforts to
placate the mad proslavery advocates, Lincoln persistently
warned his fellow-countrymen. He early saw that the
country had by its continuation of the policies of the pro-
slavery party decided upon a fatal course of winking at a
terrible evil. Under the operation of that policy, said he,
1 that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly
augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis
shall have been reached and passed. A house divided
against itself cannot stand. I believe this government
cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do
not expect the Union to be dissolved I do not expect the
house to fall but I do expect it will cease to be divided.
It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the
opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it,
and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief
that it is in the course of ultimate extinction ; or its advo-

s See Lincoln s speech in the Appendix.

216 The Negro In Our History

cates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful
in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as
South." 6

The culmination of the proslavery discussion was the
Dred Scott decision. This was the case of a Negro who had
been taken from the slave States into free territory a second
The Dred Scott time, when he instituted proceedings to ob-
Decision. tain his f ree d om . The case passed through

the local and higher courts and finally came before the
Supreme Court of the United States, which decided that at
that time, when the Constitution of the United States was
adopted, Negroes were not regarded as citizens of this
country and they could not, therefore, sue as such in the
United States courts. That tribunal then had no jurisdic
tion in such a case and it was dismissed. This was to say
that the Negro, so far as the United States Government
was concerned, had no rights that the white man should
respect, and that although certain sections of the country by
regulations were generally free, any part of the country
might become slave, should persons owning Negroes choose
to settle therein. Slavery was therefore national, while
freedom was sectional.

Against this interpretation of the Constitution to justify
such encroachment upon the rights of the individual, the
friends of freedom persistently protested. Wendell Phil-
Increasing Hps, the stanch advocate of liberty, equality,
opposition. an( j fraternity, saw in the constitution thus
interpreted such an inhuman law that he refused to seek
election to Congress because he could not conscientiously
take the oath to support it. William Henry Seward, then
coming forward as the spokesman of those who dared to
engage in the battle for the rights of citizens under the
constitution, accepted the challenge in his Impending

e Abraham Lincoln, Speeches and Debates (New York, 1907), p. 36.

The Irrepressible Conflict 217

Crisis and Irrepressible Conflict. 7 Salmon P. Chase and
Charles Sumner, though not at first militant abolitionists,
had reached the conclusion that slavery would have to
yield ground to free soil, free speech and free men.

The slavery debate then ceased to be a constitutional ques
tion and became largely political. The organization of the
Republican Party in 1854, and its all but successful cam
paign in 1856 with John C. Fremont on the slavery in
platform of prohibiting the extension of slav- P oli tics.
ery, made this question the dominant thought of most
forward-looking men. Here we see the agitation for the
rights of man connecting opportunely with modern eco
nomic movements to reduce slave labor to the point of a
death struggle with free labor. Although aware of the fact
that the civilized world had proscribed slavery, the South
was willing to remain in a primitive state to retain it. The
North was determined not to yield any more ground to an
institution in which it had no interest and against which
it had many reasons to be opposed. Then followed the
popularization of Uncle Tom s Cabin, the famous debates
of Lincoln and Douglas, the division of the truncated Demo
cratic Party, the accession of northern liberals to the ranks
of the Republicans, and the triumph of the Republican
Party in 1860.

The southern States, believing that their last chance to
maintain slavery in the Union had passed, thereupon se
ceded to establish a confederate government in keeping
with their institutions. South Carolina took ij,^ e jj^st
such action December 20, 1860, and before stand of the
Lincoln had been inaugurated the following out *
March all of the cotton States had followed her example.
Was secession constitutional? James Buchanan, the weak
executive then finishing his term as President, said that

7 See Appendix for Seward s thought on the crisis.

218

The Negro In Our History

these commonwealths had no right to leave the Union, but
he did not believe that he had any constitutional power to
interfere with their going. This was the most critical
period through which the Union had passed, and persons
who had for some years observed the development of disin
tegrating forces doubted that it would weather the storm.
When the Federal Constitution was framed and adopted

I860

50 TO 75 PER CENT

75 PER CENT AND OVER

THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE NEGRO POPULATION IN 1860

By permission of the United States Bureau of the Census

few persons were conscious of the fact that the foundation
for a durable union of the States had been laid. The very
The nature of language of the Constitution itself indicates
the Union. t h at a consolidation of the States ratifying
that agreement was not clear in the minds of the framers.
In the course of time, however, the country developed into
a Union, the majority of the States taking the position that
it could not be broken. Some States were in doubt as to
whether a State could secede at the time of the agitation

The Irrepressible Conflict

219

of the Alien and Sedition Laws which culminated in the
high ground taken by Virginia and Kentucky in their
threatening resolutions. More strength for the Union was
evidenced when New England, because of its dissatisfaction
with the conduct of the War of 1812, felt disposed to make
an effort at secession. The Union sentiment was much more
pronounced at the time of the nullification of the efforts of
South Carolina in 1833, indicating, as Benjamin F. Wade

of Ohio boldly asserted, that
there was little chance for a
State to leave the Union of its
own accord. 8

In spite of this nationalistic
attitude, however, the South had
become so much attached to slav
ery and the North so far re
moved from it that this insti-,
tution tended so to Threats of
widen the breach secession,
that to carry its point the South
for three decades threatened
the country with secession. Be
fore the two participants in this
contest lay the promising 1 West.
Each was making an effort to in
vade that domain to establish there States which would sup
port their respective claims. As a free society expands
much more rapidly than a slave community, the North eas
ily outstripped the South and in seeking an advantage by
preventing the expansion of slavery in the interest of free
labor, it forced the South to the radical position of under
taking secession. These threats were very much pro
nounced during the ardent slavery debates of 1849 and 1850,

BENJAMIN F. WADE, the
defier of the Seces
sionists

8 See Appendix for Wade s speech.

220

The Negro In Our History

leaving certain sores which the all-comprehending compro
mise of 1850 failed to heal. And when the agitation had
seemingly been all but settled by these arrangements, the
matter broke out anew in the effort to provide a govern
ment for Kansas and Ne
braska and in the struggle
there between the repre
sentatives of the North and
South. The bloodshed in
Kansas was the beginning
of the Civil War, and the
raid of John Brown at
Harpers Ferry in 1859
was but another event of
the same struggle. 9 Al
though he overestimated
the effect of his exploits
he did drive home, how
ever, the fact that a num
ber of people in the North
had thought so seriously
about slavery as to en
danger their lives in try
ing to exterminate the institution. It made the country
realize that something would have to be done to bring
the matter to a conclusion, and the Civil War was the
crowning event of this long-drawn-out movement.

JOHN BROWN

9 See the last words of John Brown in the Appendix.

CHAPTER XV

THE NEGRO IN THE CIVIL WAR

WHEN the war broke out, the President of the United
States openly declared that it was not his purpose to inter
fere with the institutions of the South, meaning of course,
that he had no desire to attack slavery in those Evading
commonwealths in which it existed. The slavery.
South, on the other hand, anxious to win favor abroad and
knowing how it would harm its cause in foreign countries
to have it said that it had undertaken a war to promote
slavery, declared its position one of self-defense to maintain
its right to govern itself and to preserve its own peculiar
institutions. Negroes, therefore, were not to be freed and
of course were not to take a part in the war, as it was
considered a struggle between white men. This does not
mean, however, that Abraham Lincoln had lost sight of the
fact that he had been elected by a party opposed to the
extension of slavery, nor that he ceased to put forth efforts,
whenever possible, to check the institution as he had for
merly declared. After the war had been well begun and it
was evident that such efforts as the peace convention could
not succeed, Lincoln took up with the border States the
question of setting the example of freeing the Negroes by a
process of gradual emancipation. 1

i J. K. Hosmer, The Appeal to Arms and his Outcome of the Civil
War; J. W. Burgess, Civil War and the Constitution; James Ford
Rhodes, History of the United States, Vol. Ill; J. B. McMaster,
History of the United States, Vol. VIII, p. 473; James Schouler,
History of the United States, VI, 1861-1865, passim; William Wells
Brown, The Rising Son, 341-381; George W. Williams, History of

221

The Negro In Our History

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

The Negro In the Civil War 223

Before the war had proceeded very far, however, the
Negroes came up for serious consideration because of the
many problems which developed out of the peculiar situ
ation in which they were. In the first place, r^ jf egro
there were in the North free Negroes who involved,
were anxious to do their share in defeating the purposes of
the Confederate States, knowing that the success of their
cause meant the perpetuation of slavery. There were in
the North, moreover, white men who were of the opinion
that free Negroes should share a part of the burden entailed
by waging the Civil War. Furthermore, as soon as the
invading Union armies crossed the Mason and Dixon line
into the South, disturbing the plantation system and driving
the masters away from their homes, the Negroes were left
behind to constitute a problem for the army. There arose
the question as to what was the status of such Negroes.
Nominally they were slaves, actually they were free, but
there was no law to settle the question. A few slaves who
had been taken over by the Union armies from persons in
rebellion against the United States, were confiscated by
virtue of the legislation providing for this disposition of
such property of the Confederates. Yet there were Negroes
who did not wait for the invading armies but, when their
masters had gone to the front to defend the South, left
their homes and made way to the Union camps. 2

The first effort to deal with such slaves was made by
General Butler at Fortress Monroe in 1861. Butler s
Such slaves as escaped into his camp in flight contrabands,
from their masters, he accepted as contrabands of war on
the grounds that they had been employed in assisting the

Negro Troops in the War of the Rebellion, passim; William MacDon-
ald, Select Statutes of United States History, 34-39; and A. B. Hart,
American History Told by Contemporaries, IV, 181-458.

2 The best authority on the Civil War is James Ford Rhodes. See
his History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to
the Final Restoration of Home Rule in tTfe South; Volumes I-IV.

224

The Negro In Our History

Confederate armies and could be confiscated in the same
sense that one would take over other supplies of the
Confederates. Mu ch discussion was aroused by the action
of General Butler, and there was doubt as to whether or not
it would be supported by the President. This plan, how
ever, was followed by General Wood, Butler s successor,
and by General Banks when he was operating in New Or
leans. General Halleck, while operating in the West, at first

NEGROES IN THE SERVICE OF THE CONFEDERATES

excluded slaves from the camps, as did also General Dix in
Virginia. Some generals, like General McCook and General
Johnson, permitted slave hunters to come into their lines
and reclaim their fugitive slaves. Later, however, General
Halleck seems to have receded from his early position.
General Grant refused to give permits to those seeking to
recapture the Negroes who had escaped from their former
masters, and used the blacks at such labor as the building
of roads and fortifications, very much as they were first

The Negro In the Civil War 225

question

used by General Butler. This anticipated a policy which
was later followed by the United States Army. 3

In the course of time, however, the national government
saw the necessity of treating the Negro ques-
tion more seriously. It was evident that if
the South continued to use the Negro slaves
in building fortifications and roads and bridges and, in
fact, to do practically all ^ _ __
of the labor required in
the army, it was incum
bent upon the Union arm
ies operating in the South
to do likewise. Lincoln,
therefore, soon accepted the
policy of using the slaves
in this capacity, receding
from his former position
of thinking that should the
slaves be given any en
couragement to leave their
homes they might start a
servile insurrection, and in
promoting such he would
weaken himself in his hold
on the North.

At first these Negroes did
not find their life a pleasant one. They were suddenly
thrown among strange men from the North, who. had
never had much dealing with the Negroes and whose first
impression of them was not favorable. Arriv- The Negro in
ing among these soldiers, naked, hungry, and * ne camps.
often diseased moreover, lacking the initiative to provide

a G. W. Williams, History of the Negro Troops in the War of the
Rebellion, passim; William Wells Brown, The Rising Son; and John
Eaton, Grant, Lincoln, and the Freedmen.

U. S. GRANT

226 The Negro In Our History

for themselves what the average freeman was expected to
do, they presented a piteous spectacle which baffled the skill
of the army. The refugees were finally organized under
directions sent out from headquarters of the army, and
placed in charge of a superintendent having under him
sufficient assistants to relieve most of the cases of dis
tress and to make some use of the able-bodied Negroes.

Most of these refugees were sent to Washington, Alex
andria, Fortress Monroe, Hampton, Craney Island, York-
town, Suffolk, Portsmouth, Port Royal, South Carolina,
and certain camps of the West near Memphis. At one time,
in the camp at Arlington, just across from Washington,
there were as many as 30,000 Negroes. This number in
creased to almost 100,000 in the various camps near Wash
ington, in the proportion that the war advanced and the
territory of the Confederates became overrun by the invad
ing Union armies. 4 It was easy to find employment for
those in camps near cities. Some of them were put to work
on deserted plantations. Others were incorporated into
the army as teamsters, mechanics, and common laborers.
Sojourner Truth, who served the Union army as a mes
senger and a spy, rendered valuable service in these camps
by teaching the refugees cleanliness and habits of industry.

It was arranged also to send a number of these Negroes
from the congested districts in the loyal States as fast as
opportunities for their employment presented themselves.
Those found near cities and manufacturing points, where
Fugitives there was a demand for labor, were in some
sent North. cases employed to do work in which white men
sent to the war had been engaged. A good many passed

4 For more extensive treatment, see John Eaton, Grant, Lincoln and
the Freedmen; E. L. Pierce s The Freedmen of Port Royal, South
Carolina; G. W. Williams s The History of Negro Troops, 90-98; E. H.
Botume s First Days Amongst the Contrabands, and The Atlantic
Monthly, XII, 308.

The Negro In the Civil War 227

through Cairo, Illinois, into the West, and some others were
sent through York, Columbia, Harrisburg, and Philadelphia
to points in the North. This, however, did not continue to a
very great extent, for the reason that there was some appre
hension that the North might be overcrowded by such f reed-
men. Several schemes were set forth to transport this pop
ulation, and when this number was still further increased
by the thousands of Negroes emancipated in the District of
Columbia in 1862, Abraham Lincoln himself thought to get
rid of these freedmen by promoting a scheme to colonize
them in foreign parts.

To carry out this plan as he desired, he sent a special
message to Congress expressing the necessity for Congres
sional action in the way of an appropriation to finance such
an enterprise. The Secretary of State, there- uncoi^g
fore, opened correspondence with various colonization
countries having colonies settled partly by plan *
Negroes, thinking that they could be induced to accept
Negro emigrants from this country. He conducted corre
spondence then with Great Britain, Denmark, France,
Sweden and all of the South American countries. In the
beginning it became evident that only two countries, Liberia
and Haiti, each of which were settled by Negroes, were will
ing to admit these refugees. But the Negroes themselves,
because of their prejudice against Liberia and the unsuc
cessful effort at colonization in Haiti, did not care to emi
grate to those countries. Favorable replies, however, finally
came from the Island of A Vache. The government im
mediately planned to send a colony to that settlement by
virtue of an appropriation made by Congress. Bernard
Koch approached the government and induced the authori
ties to make with him a contract for the transportation
of Negroes to this island.

At the same time Koch connected himself with certain

228 The Negro In Our History

business men in New York, who, in return for commercial
advantages to be gained there, agreed also to finance the
The double enterprise. When this double dealing was
dealing of discovered the United States Government
severed connection with Koch. The capital
ists, however, still determined to conduct this enterprise,
engaged the services of Koch as governor. Accordingly
a number of Negroes were sent to this island in the year
1862, but owing to the unfavorable conditions and their lack
of initiative, unusual suffering ensued. It was necessary
for the Government, because of the many complaints re
ceived therefrom, to send a special investigator to report on
the situation, and finally, on account of his unfavorable
report, to dispatch a transport to bring the emigrants back
to the United States.

Lincoln, however, remained fundamentally an antislav-
ery man in spite of this untoward enterprise, but he re
ligiously adhered to his gradual emancipation schemes.
He would not permit the antislavery sentiment of the
country to force upon him the policy of instant emancipa
tion. As there were in the field generals availing them
selves of every opportunity to weaken the slave power,
much vigilance had to be exercised to avoid extreme
measures which might embarrass the Federal Government.
Taking the advanced position that the slaves should be free,
Fremont issued a decree abolishing slavery in Missouri.
It was necessary for Lincoln to say to him on September
2, 1861 : * I think there is great danger that the closing
paragraph, in relation to the confiscation of property and
the liberating slaves of traitorous owners, will alarm our
southern Union friends and turn them against us ; perhaps
ruin our rather fair prospect for Kentucky. Allow me,
therefore, to ask that you will, as of your own motion,
modify that paragraph so as to conform to the first and
fourth sections of the act of Congress, entitled An Act to

The Negro In the Civil War 229

Confiscate Property used for Insurrectionary Purposes."
The following May, Lincoln had to deal similarly with
Major-General Hunter, then stationed at Port Royal, South
Carolina. This commander had issued a declaration to the
effect that the commonwealths within his jurisdiction hav
ing deliberately declared themselves no longer under the
protection of the United States of America and having
taken up arms against the United States, it became a mili
tary necessity to declare martial law, and as slavery and
martial law were incompatible in a free country, the per
sons of these States held to service were declared free.
Lincoln then issued a proclamation declaring that neither
General Hunter nor any other commander or person had
been authorized by the government of the United States to
take such action and that the supposed proclamation in
question, whether genuine or false, was altogether void
so far as respects such a declaration. He considered it
sufficient at that time to rely upon his proposed plan for the
gradual abolition of slavery on the compensation basis re
cently accepted by Congress.

Writing Hunter again on the eleventh of the same month,
Lincoln said : The particular clause, however, in relation
to the confiscation of property and the liberation of slaves
appeared to me to be objectionable in its nonconformity to
the act of Congress passed the 6th of last August upon the
same subjects ; and hence I wrote you, expressing my wish
that that clause should be modified accordingly. Your
answer, just received, expresses the preference on your part
that I should make an open order for the modification, which
I very cheerfully do. It is, therefore, ordered that the said
clause of said proclamation be so modified, held, and con
strued as to conform to, and not to transcend, the provisions
on the same subject contained in the act of Congress, enti
tled An Act to Confiscate Property used for Insurrectionary
Purposes."

230 The Negro In Our History

It was growing more and more apparent, however, that
the Negro would have to be treated as a citizen of the
United States. In the army he had demonstrated his ca-
A convincing pacity as a man. He had shown that he could
record. become industrious, that he was thrifty, and

that he would serve unselfishly. Where he had an oppor
tunity to toil upward he succeeded. It was therefore
recommended by a number of men, and among them General
Grant himself, that certain Negroes be so equipped and
trained that they might be employed not only as teamsters
and mechanics and the like, but as soldiers. This change of
policy was necessary not merely for sentimental reasons but
because the North, in its effort to subjugate the cavalier
South, had found those warriors too well trained and too
spirited to be easily conquered. In most of the important
engagements the South had won. Farragut had captured
New Orleans, Thomas and Grant had won a few victories
in the West, and the Monitor had held its own with the
Merrimac in defending the nation s cause, but the Union
army had been twice ingloriously defeated at Manassas, and
McClellan had lost in his Peninsular campaign and had
thrown away his advantages gained at Antietam. As the
army was unsuccessful under Burnside at Fredericksburg,
and under Hooker at Chancellorsville, the North, growing
tired of the war, was becoming fertile ground for seeds of
a second secession sown by copperheads who were planning
to establish another republic in the Northwest. It was
deemed advisable, therefore, to bring the Negro into the
army that he might help to save the Union. By this time,
too, the Federal Government had reached the position that
slavery, the root of most of the evils of the country and
The the actual cause of the war, would have to be

Emancipation exterminated. Congress passed sweeping con-
Proclamation. fiscation acts by virtue of which the armies
could take over slaves, and, in 1862, Lincoln came forward

The Negro In the Civil War 231

with the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that after
the first of January in 1863 all slaves in those parts of the
country where the people might remain in rebellion against
the United States, should be declared free.

*, /*u, &lt;&**+ ^

G&**

FACSIMILE OF THE ORIGINAL DRAFT OF THE EMANCIPATION
PROCLAMATION

Northern men like General DePeyster, General Thomas
W. Sherman, General Hunter, Governor Yates of Illinois,
Henry Wilson, and Charles Sumner, had been emphatic in
urging the United States Government to arm the Negroes
to weaken the South. And well might the United States

232 The Negro In Our History

Army take this action, for the seceders had not only made
use of the Negroes as laborers, but in Tennessee and Louisi
ana had actually organized free Negroes for military serv
ice in the Confederate Army. Yet, although the confis-
The arming cation acts and other legislation justified the
of Negroes. employment of Negroes, Lincoln hesitated to
carry out these provisions. In 1862, however, General
David Hunter, commanding in South Carolina, issued an
order for recruiting a Negro regiment, which in a few
months was in the field. This caused much dissatisfaction
among the Unionists, who did not feel that Negroes should
be called on to fight the battles of a free republic. An effort
was made to embarrass General Hunter, but he emerged
from the investigation without being reversed, although
he did not have the support of Lincoln. General J. W.
Phelps, under General B. F. Butler in Louisiana, under-
toojs to carry out Hunter s policy, but his superior was
then willing to use the Negroes as laborers only.

Certain leaders in the North, however, were becoming a
little more aggressive in their demand for the employment
of Negroes as soldiers. On August 4, 1862, Governor
Sprague of Rhode Island urged Negro citizens to enlist, and
that same month Butler himself appealed to the free people
of color of Louisiana to come to the defense of the Union.
The next month a regiment of Negroes marched forth to
war as the "First Regiment of Louisiana Native Guards,"
soon changed to the "First Regiment Infantry Corps
d Afrique." There was later organized the "First Regi
ment Louisiana Heavy Artillery." Other Negro regiments
soon followed, and before the end of 1862 four Negro regi
ments had been brought into the military service of the
United States. Then came the "Kansas Colored Volun
teers" early in 1863, and when the Emancipation Procla
mation had been signed Lincoln officially authorized the
raising of Negro troops. Then followed the famous Fifty-

The Negro In the Civil War

233

fourth Massachusetts and so many other troops that there
was established in Washington a special, bureau for han
dling affairs respecting these units, aggregating before the
end of the war 178,975.

In keeping with the custom which was all but followed
during the World War, the Negro troops were commanded
almost altogether by white officers. There was some doubt

ROBERT GOULD SHAW LEADING THE FIFTY-FOURTH MASSACHUSETTS

REGIMENT

that the Negro would make a good soldier and, of course,
the Negro officer was then almost impossible. The use of
Massachusetts, however, commissioned ten Negro troops.
Negro officers, Kansas three, and the military authorities
a considerable number in Louisiana. Negroes held altogether
about seventy-five commissions in the army during the Civil
War. Among these officers were Lieutenant Colonel

234 The Negro In Our History

William N. Reed of the First North Carolina, a man well
educated in Germany. He made a gallant charge with his
regiment at the battle of Olustee, Florida, where he was
mortally wounded. In the Kansas corps there were Captain
H. Ford Douglass, First Lieutenant W. D. Matthews and
Second Lieutenant Patrick A. Minor. In the U. S. C. T.
One Hundred and Fourth Regiment there were Major
Martin R. Delaney and Captain 0. S. B. Wall of Company
K. Dr. Alexander T. Augusta, who was surgeon of the
U. S. C. T. Seventh Regiment, was finally breveted with
Lieutenant-Colonel. Dr. John V. DeGrasse was. assistant
surgeon of the U. S. C. T. Thirty-fifth Regiment. Charles
B. Purvis, Alpheus Tucker, John Rapier, William Ellis,
Anderson R. Abbott and William Powell were hospital
surgeons at Washington, D. C.

One might inquire, too, as to exactly what was the status
of the Negro troops. In the first place, they were not
treated as the equals of white men. There was objection
to giving them the same compensation offered the whites.
The status of /-^ n ^ ne matter of bounties there was a dis-
the Negro / crimination against Negro soldiers who were
slaves on April 19, 1861. This caused dissatis
faction among the Negro troops, whose families thereby
seriously suffered. Sergeant William Walker was shot by
order of court martial because he had his company stack
arms before the captain s tent for the reason that the Gov
ernment had failed to comply with its contract. The Fifty-
fourth of Massachusetts nobly refused to receive its pay
until it had been made equal to that of the whites. Negro
troops, moreover, were often used by white troops for
fatigue duty. Because of this notorious discrimination
many of these soldiers became restive, sullen and even in
subordinate.

Yet these Negroes distinguished themselves as soldiers.

The Negro In the Civil War 235

Men under whom these troops fought in battle were loud in
praise of their gallantry and martyrdom. Negroes served
in almost all parts of the South. They en- valuable
gaged in the perilous South Edisto Expedition service,
to burn a bridge above Walton Bluff to aid General Sher-&gt;
man, and participated in the ac
tion at Honey Hill. Speaking
of their behavior in the expedi
tion to Dobey River in Georgia,
General Rufus Saxton said that j
they fought with most deter- J
mined bravery. Surgeon Seth
Rogers, operating in South Caro
lina, said that braver men never
lived. Colonel T. W. Higginson
himself believed that "it would
have been madness to attempt
with the bravest white troops
what he successfully accom
plished with the black." Even
in the failure to carry Fort Wag
ner, a point necessary to the capture of Charleston, the
Negro troops bore the severest tests of valor, following their
gallant leader, Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, who in this
charge fell mortally wounded.

In the Mississippi Valley they fought still more bravely.
Negro troops made six such desperate charges on a fort at
Port Hudson that a reporter said that the deeds of heroism
performed by these black men were such as Bravery in
the proudest white men might emulate. Gen- the West,
eral Banks said in referring to their behavior : "It gives
me great pleasure to report that they answered every ex
pectation. Their conduct was heroic ; no troops could be
more determined or more daring." Other troops from

COL. THOMAS W. HIG
GINSON, a commander
of Negro troops

236 The Negro In Our History

Louisiana showed themselves equally brave at Milliken s
Bend. Keporting this battle, Captain Matthew M. Miller
said : So they fought and died, defending the cause that
we revere. They met death coolly, bravely ; nor rashly did
they expose themselves, but all were steady and obedient to
orders." And so went others to death in the massacre at
Fort Pillow in Tennessee, where the Confederates, in keep
ing with their bold declaration not to give quarter to the
slaves striking for their own freedom, slaughtered them as
men kill beasts.

In the Department of the Potomac the Negro maintained
there his reputation as a soldier. Under General Wild, at
Fort Powhatan in 1864, the Negro soldiers bravely held their
Bravery ground against the heavy onslaught of Fitz-

alongthe hugh Lee s brilliant soldiers, who were badly

&gt;otomac. worsted in the conflict. When General Grant
was endeavoring to reduce Petersburg, a brigade of Hinck s
Negro division brilliantly dashed forward and cleared a
line of rifle-pits and carried a redoubt ahead. They did
valiant work of the same order at South Mountain and died
bravely in carrying the fortified positions of the Confed
erates at New Market Heights and nearer to Petersburg. In
the dash along the James and in the pursuit of Lee s weak
ened forces, the Negroes under arms maintained their bear
ing as brave men and came out of the Civil War as heroes.

In carrying on the Civil War many constitutional ques
tions arose. Chief among these was the suspension of the
Writ of habeas corpus in the cases of certain copperheads
Constitutional or " pacifists" in the North, who arrayed
questions. themselves against the United States Govern

ment and at one time even threatened the country with an
additional secession. The Constitution provided for the sus
pension of the writ in times of great danger, but it is not
clear whether the framers of the Constitution contemplated
that this power should be exercised by the President of the

The Negro In the Civil War 237

United States. Furthermore, those who asserted that the
writ could be suspended under certain conditions did not
concede the right to the President to suspend it in sections
where the courts were open and where the armies were not
in operation. The most important case of this kind was
that of Milligan, when by operation of the courts the
plaintiff undertook to secure his liberty through a writ of
habeas corpus and the President of the United States in
terfered.

There arose also a question as to taxing the people unduly
to support a government waging war to coerce certain
States, interfering with the freedom of the press by the
censorship established during the war, enforc- Taxation,
ing conscription acts compelling men to fight against their
will, and finally, by action of Congress, providing for
gradual emancipation in certain border States and the abo
lition of slavery in the District of Columbia. Whether Con
gress could constitutionally legislate respecting slavery was
still a question, but the Civil War gradually brought the
country to a realization that Congress, representing the peo
ple of the United States, had adequate power in the prem
ises. Because of vesting the President with dictatorial
power to wage the war effectively, however, there came from
certain sources a bitter antagonism which led to the organ
ization of a party of opposition advocating the Union as it
was and the Constitution as it is.

The most important constitutional matter coming up dur
ing the Civil War was that of the Emancipation Proclama
tion itself. Lincoln had for some time wondered whether
or not he had such authority, and long hesitated to issue this
mandate declaring free all the Negroes in the y^
districts then in rebellion against the United emancipation
States. Fremont, Hunter and Butler, in pro
charge of Union armies, had undertaken to do this, but had
to be restrained. One of the members of Lincoln s cabinet

238 The Negro In Our History

was of the opinion that he had no such power and that such
a step would doubtless do more harm than good. In the end,
however, just after a number of encouraging Union vic
tories, the Emancipation Proclamation was issued and had
its desired effect, but to become legal it had to be fortified
by the Thirteenth Amendment. Few persons have since
questioned the Thirteenth Amendment, but the Fourteenth
and Fifteenth which followed thereupon have since given
rise to all sorts of constitutional questions involving the
rights of the Negroes.

CHAPTER XVI

THE RECONSTRUCTION

As soon as the Union armies began to occupy a consid
erable portion of the territory of the so-called seceded
States, there was some thought about the rehabilitation of
these commonwealths. 1 As to the exact posi- Lincoln s
tion of these commonwealths which had un- reconstruc-
dertaken to withdraw from the Union, there
was a wide difference of opinion. Lincoln himself was of
the impression that a State could not get out of the
Union. "Once in the Union, forever in the Union," was
his theory. Lincoln therefore issued, on December 8, 1863,
a proclamation setting forth a plan for the recon
struction of these commonwealths. Making exception of
those who had served in the civil or diplomatic service of
the Confederate Government or in judicial stations, of
those who had -served in the army or navy with rank above
colonel, or who had abandoned Congress to aid the rebellion,
resigned commissions in the army, or cruelly treated Ne
groes or white persons in charge of them, Lincoln pro-

i There are no scientific studies of the nation-wide reconstruction
in which the Negroes took a part. W. L. Fleming, James F. Rhodes,
W. A. Dunning and J. W. Burgess have written works in this field,
but they are biased and inadequate. Almost a score of other so-
called scientific studies of Reconstruction in the various States have
been made, but these merely try to make, a case for the white man s
eide of the question as to whether the reduction of the Negro to serf
dom was just. John R. Lynch in his Facts of Reconstruction, and
WEB. DuBois in his Reconstruction, and Its Benefits (in the
American Historical Review, XV, No. 4) have undertaken to point out
these defects.

239

240 The Negro In Our History

claimed full pardon to the people in the Confederate States
with the restoration of all rights of property except as to
slaves if they should take and subscribe to an oath of al
legiance to the United States Government and thencefor
ward keep and maintain this oath inviolate.

Lincoln further proclaimed that whenever in any of these
States there should be loyal persons to the number of not
less than one-tenth of the votes cast in such States at the
presidential election of the year 1860, each having taken
The ten per this oath and not having violated it and being
cent basis. a qualified voter by the election law of the
State existing prior to the secession, the commonwealth
should establish a State government. This government
should be democratic, should be recognized as the true gov
ernment of the State, and should receive the benefits of the
constitutional provision which declares that the United
States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a re
publican form of government.

Lincoln also proclaimed that any provision which these
commonwealths thus restored might adopt in relation to
the freed people within their limits, which should recognize
Interest In and declare their permanent freedom, and
the freedmen. provide for their education, which might then
be consistent as a temporary arrangement with their
condition as a laboring, landless and homeless class,
would not be objected to by the President. The President
was of the opinion that the name of the State,
the boundary, subdivisions, constitution, and the former
code of laws should be maintained, subject only to
the modification made necessary by the conditions elsewhere
stated in the proclamation, and such others, if any, not
contravening the conditions of the proclamation and which
might be deemed expedient by those framing the new State
government.

Upon this basis Lincoln undertook the reconstruction of

The Reconstruction

241

the States of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee prior to
the close of the Civil War as soon as loyal men to the number
of one-tenth of the voters exercising suffrage in the presi
dential election of 1860 were found in states
those commonwealths. When the cessation reorganized,
of arms finally came, several other rebellious common
wealths, thinking that the States as such could never be
destroyed, proceeded to organize similar governments,

TEACHING THE FREEDMEN

complying with the conditions of repudiating the Confeder
ate debts, declaring allegiance to the Union, and ratifying
the Thirteenth Amendment. They, therefore, feeling that
they would be immediately admitted to the Union with the
rights and privileges formerly enjoyed by the Southern
States, elected representatives and senators to sit in Con
gress. Believing that Lincoln s position in this case was
sound, Andrew Johnson, his successor, undertook to carry
out this policy. This, however, was not acceptable to the
statesmen then in control of affairs, and the right of such

242 The Negro In Our History

persons to serve as representatives of these commonwealths
was questioned.

They found in Congress men led by Thaddeus Stevens,
who was of the opinion that inasmuch as the Southern
States had rebelled and had failed to maintain their cause,
Various they were then subject to the same treatment

theories. as anv other people in a conquered territory.

This, to be sure, conflicted with certain other views, as it ad
mitted that secession had been temporarily successful, and
conflicted with the administrative plans of Lincoln and
Johnson to the effect that secession was merely an unsuc
cessful effort and that the States were still in the Union.
Shellabarger contended that secession was a nullity, which
although it could not assume control of the territory in
which it existed, nevertheless worked a loss in the status of
a member of the Union, and the citizens remaining therein
were, therefore, exclusively subjected to the jurisdiction of
the United States Government. This was endorsed by
Sumner, Fessenden and Wilson, and became, in fact, the
theory of the Republican Party in Congress, which grew
antagonistic to the administration and led to the long differ
ences of opinion between that body and Johnson, finally
culminating in the impeachment of the President.

There came also to the national capital various reports
which further convinced the gentlemen in charge of affairs
in Congress that the South was unwilling to grant the Negro
Theunwill- the right to enjoy the fruits of the victory of
ing South. the Civil WaTj f or the freedmen were being

oppressed almost to the extent of being enslaved. The first
reports were brought in by General Grant and Carl Schurz,
the former contending that the southerners were in the
main willing to accept the changes effected by the Civil
War, and the latter being of the opinion that the rebellious
commonwealths were not loyal and intended to reenslave
the Negroes. Some of these States were enacting black

The Reconstruction

SOME FACTORS IN THE RECONSTRUCTION
WILLIAM P. FESSENDEX SAMUEL SHELLABARGEB

CARL SCHURZ
FREDERICK T. FRELIXGHUYSEX THADDEUS STEVENS

244 The Negro In Our History

codes providing for apprenticeship, penalizing the vagrancy
of Negroes, and interfering with the civil rights of the freed-
men. Many of the blacks, having wandered about or flocked
to the towns where they too often were reduced to poverty
and subject to temptations and vicious influences, tended to
retrograde rather than advance. The vagrancy laws, there
fore, generally provided for fines, corporal punishment, in
denturing for a certain period of service, and in a few cases
required that every Negro should be attached to some
employer. Furthermore, there had set in a general intimi
dation of Negroes, and in some parts, as in Louisiana,
large numbers of the race were massacred by antagonistic
whites, with no excuse but that of trying to regain the lost
cause. Assured that the situation was deplorable, Congress
proceeded to draft the Fourteenth Amendment as a condi
tion of readmission of a seceded State to the Union, endeav
oring to prevent any State from making or enforcing a law
which would encroach upon the privileges or immunities
of citizens of the United States, deprive them of life,
liberty or property without due process of law, or with
hold from any one within its jurisdiction the equal protec
tion of the law. In this way the South, by taking a radical
position in its unwise application of its power to deal with
persons over whom it would have been given more control,
brought upon itself a military rule from which it would
not have suffered if it had been disposed to treat the freed-
men humanely.

These reports led also to the organization of what is
known as the Freedmen s Bureau, 2 the commission estab
lished for the protection and the assistance of the freedmen.
Some such idea had for some years been expressed from

2 On the twenty-fifth of May the committee reported the House bill
with a substitute amendment, and the bill thus amended passed the
Senate on the twenty-ninth of June by a vote of 21 to 9. The select
committee of the House recommended that the amendments of the
Senate be disagreed to and further action was postponed until Decem-

The Reconstruction 245

time to time in Congress. A bill * to establish a bureau of
emancipation" was reported in the House, December 22,
1863, by Eliot, of Massachusetts, from the The Freed-
Select Committee on Emancipation, and men s Bureau,
then recommitted. The bill was reported with amend
ments on the thirteenth of January, 1864, and on the first
of March passed the House by a vote of 69 to 67. In
the Senate the bill was referred to the Select Committee
on Slavery and Freedmen, of which Charles Sumner was
chairman. A bill to establish a bureau of freedmen was re
ported from the committee on the twelfth of April.
On the third of March the report of a second conference
committee was agreed to by both houses. The measure to
establish the department was vetoed by President Johnson
who, in giving his reasons, so antagonized the leaders in
Congress as to widen the irreparable breach between the
executive and legislative departments. This bill, with cer
tain objectionable features removed, was later passed over
the President s veto, but had to be amended thereafter.

The act provided for the appointment of a commissioner
with a number of assistants under the administration of the
President to care for the freedmen in the districts in re
bellion or controlled by the Union army. Primarily the
Freedmen s Bureau was intended to aid refugees and freed
men by supplying them with provisions and in taking up
abandoned lands in the South, which were to be distributed
in parcels of not more than forty acres each. On account
of misrepresentations many Negroes expected from this
quarter forty acres of land and a mule for each of the
landless freedmen, and this prospective charity tended to
produce vagrancy and shiftlessness among people indulged

ber. On the twentieth of December a conference committee was ap
pointed. The report of the committee was accepted by the House on
the ninth of February, 1865, by a vote of 64 to 62, 56 not voting;
but it was rejected by the Senate on the twenty-second by a vote of
14 to 24. See also the Freedmen s Bureau Act in the Appendix.

246

The Negro In Our History

as dependent children. The Freedmen s Bureau was vested
with the power to build school houses and asylums for the
Negroes, and it was proposed to give it unusual power in
its jurisdiction over all civil and criminal cases where

equality in civil rights and
in the application of jus
tice was denied on ac
count of race, color, or
previous condition of ser
vitude. With this unusual
power vested in machin
ery coming from without
the State and intended
to benefit persons recently
enslaved, the Freedmen s
Bureau became a source of
much irritation to the
whites of the South. Grant
thought that the officers of
the Freedmen s Bureau

GEN. O. 0. HOWARD, head of the were a useless set of men
Freedmen s Bureau and founder of -, -, -, ,, ,,

Howard University an(1 recommended tnat the

work be placed in charge

of army officers. It was for a number of years directed by
General 0. 0. Howard, the founder of Howard University.
When Congress finally decided to ignore Johnson s re
construction schemes, a committee was appointed to work
out a more acceptable plan. After some deliberation these
gentlemen returned with a majority and a minority report.
Congressional The ma J orit y report, representing the views
of the Unionists, was to the effect that the
attempted secession of eleven States had re
sulted in the loss of their stateship and in their becoming
disorganized communities, but that although the State gov
ernments in the same had been destroyed, the common-

recon
struction.

The Reconstruction

247

wealths had not escaped the obligations of the Constitution
and the authority of the United States Government. The
minority report, representing the secessionist theory, was
that a State could never be anything less than a State, re
gardless of what its deeds may be, and each was, therefore,
entitled to the same powers, rights and privileges under the
Constitution as those given any other State. It is needless
to say that under these circumstances the minority report
had little weight.

Congress thereupon proceeded in accordance with the
views of the majority to work out a plan for the control

of the disorganized States. In
spite of the President s opposition
and his vetoes, it was decided to
divide the seceded States into five
military districts, to each of which
the President would Military
assign an army of- districts,
ficer of not lower rank than a
brigadier general, with a sufficient
force to enable him to carry out
the laws of the Union. The com
manders were to govern these
.districts by martial law as far as
in their judgments the reign of order and the preser
vation of public peace might demand. No sentence of
death, however, could be carried out without the approval
of the President. To escape, from this military govern
ment, a rebellious State had to accept universal man
hood suffrage of all male citizens of twenty-one years of
age without regard to color, race or previous condition of
servitude. This election would provide for the framing
of a State constitution through delegates to be chosen, ex
cepting persons who were disqualified by participation in
the rebellion. There would have to be a ratification of this

JOHN M. LANGSTON

248

The Negro In Our History

constitution by a majority of the voters as designated by
the same law of suffrage for the delegates of the convention.
These States, moreover, would have to ratify the Fourteenth
Amendment, which protected the Negroes from the oppres
sion of the whites in that it guaranteed to them the enjoy
ment of the privileges and immunities of citizens without re
gard to race, color or previous
condition of servitude. The
South had refused to ratify this
amendment.

Some of the States immedi
ately availed themselves of this
opportunity to be relieved of the
military regime, for there was
among them a natural antago-
Different n ism to martial law.
courses Other States, Vir-

lowed ginia, Georgia and
Texas, however, refused to take
advantage of this concession,
hoping to find a better solution
of the problem by adopting the JoHN R L * es a s member of
policy of watchful waiting. The

citizens of these States found out that the military gov
ernment was more acceptable than the governments so
quickly organized in some of the other Southern States, and
decided then for the time being to obey the dictum of the
army. In the course of time there was an enlargement of
the white majority by the extension of the terms of granting
pardon to those who had participated in&gt; the rebellion, and
as there was already a larger percentage of white persons
than Negroes in these three States when the time did come
for them to organize State governments, there soon de
veloped a majority opposed to radical reconstruction^ The
other States in the South, from 1868 to about 1872, became

The Reconstruction

249

subjected to what is commonly known as Negro carpet-bag
rule.

To call this Negro rule, however, is very much of a mis
take when, as a matter of fact, most of the local offices in
these commonwealths were held by the white men, and those
Negroes who did attain some of the higher offices were

usually about as competent as
the average whites thereto
elected. Only twenty Negroes
served in Congress from 1868
to 1895. The Negroes had politi
cal equality in the Southern
States only a few years, and
with some exceptions their ten
ure in Congress was very short.
Hiram R. Revels Not a Negro
of Mississippi com- T ^ me -
pleted an unexpired term in the
Senate and B. K. Bruce served
there six years. John M. Lang-

ston, the Negro member from
H. R. REVELS, U. S. Senator ^ T . . . *, ,-, TT

from Mississippi Virginia, served in the House

one term. From North Caro
lina there were sent to the House of Representatives, John
A. Hyman for one term and James E. O Hara, H. P.
Cheatham and George H. White for two terms each. Jef
ferson F. Long represented a district of Georgia a part of
a term. Josiah T. Walls of Florida served in the House
two terms. Alabama elected to Congress Jere Haralson,
Benjamin S. Turner and James T. Rapier, who served one
term each. Louisiana sent Charles E. Nash for one term,
and Mississippi John R. Lynch for two. South Carolina
had the largest number of Negro representatives in tha
House. Joseph H. Rainey of that Commonwealth sat in
Congress five terms; Richard H, Cain, two; Robert C.

The Negro In Our History

SOME NEGRO CONGRESSMEN

ROBERT B. ELLIOTT JOSIAH T. WALLS

ROBERT C. DELARGE RICHARD H. CAIN

The Reconstruction

251

DeLarge, one; Alonzo J. Ransier, one; Robert B. Elliott,

two; Robert Smalls, five; Thomas E. Miller, one; and

George W. Murray, two.

The charge that all Negro officers were illiterates, ignorant

of the science of government, cannot be sustained. Some of

them had undergone con
siderable training and had
experienced sufficient men
tal development to be able
to discharge their duties
with honor. Hiram R.
Revels spent two years in a

Quaker sem- Literacy of
i n a r y and voters and

officers.

was later in
structed at Knox College;
B. K. Bruce was educated
at Oberlin College. Jere
Haralson learned enough to
teach. R. H. Cain studied
at Wilberforce. James T.
Rapier was well educated
in a Catholic school in Can
ada, Benjamin Turner
clandestinely received a

B. K. BRUCE, U. S. Senator from
Mississippi

fair education in Alabama. James E. O Hara obtained a
secondary education. Robert Brown Elliott, educated at
Eton College, England, had, according to Frederick
Douglass, no peer in his race except Samuel R. Ward.
John M. Langston, after finishing both the college and
theological courses at Oberlin, practiced law in Ohio. John
R. Lynch, as evidenced by his addresses and writings, was
well educated by his dint of energy, although he had only
a common school training. Most Negroes who sat in Con
gress during the eighties and nineties, moreover, had more

m m^m. y^K^S
m ^~ ,nf

252 The Negro In Our History

formal education than Warren G. Harding, now President
of the United States.

Other Negro officeholders, furthermore, were liberally
trained. Kichard T. Greener, a Reconstruction office
holder in South Carolina, was the first Negro graduate
of Harvard College. F. L. Cardozo, another functionary

in the same State, was educated
at the University of Glasgow,
Scotland. E. D. Bassett, who
distinguished himself as an edu
cator and as Minister to Liberia,
studied the classics, mathematics
and general literature at Yale
after being graduated at the
Birmingham Academy and the
rfe H Connecticu^^State Normal

,gjjjiifm m Sch o1 - ^^B S - Finback ad-

TO| mirably u^^o. common sense

pf^fl with his fundamental education

^^ JP obtained largely at Gilmore s

High School in Cincinnati, Ohio,
JOSEPH H.RAIN member ^ rior to the war

Were Negroes in general ca

rte? To what extent were they qualified to discharge
the duties of citizens? It is true that many of them
were not prepared to vote, and decidedly disqualified for
Negroes the positions which they held. In some of

capable. ^ e legislatures, as in Louisiana and South

Carolina, more than half of the Negro members could
scarcely read or write and had, therefore, to vote ac
cording to emotions or the dictates of the demagogues,
?, of course, it has been true of legislature composed en
tirely of whites. In the local and State administrative of
fices, however, where there were frequent chances for cor
ruption, very few ignorant Negroes ever served. In

The Reconstruction

253

fact, most Negroes insisted on finding the best qualified
candidates for important positions. That they often
failed in obtaining such is not due to the shortcomings
of the Negro but to the leadership of the white adven
turers and to the refusal of ex-slaveholders to cooperate
with the freedmen in establishing the Reconstruction gov
ernments on a sounder basis.
Most of the local, State and
Federal offices, however, were
held not by Negroes but by
southern white men, and by
others who came from the North
and profited by the prostration
of the South. They were in
many respects sel- White men
fish men, but not in control,
always utterly lacking in prin
ciple. The northern whites, of
course, had little sympathy for
the South and depended for
their constituency upon the Ne
groes, who could not be expected
to placate the ex-slaveholders. Being adventurers and in
terested in their own affairs, the carpet-baggers became un
usually corrupt in certain States, administering affairs not
for the benefit of the body politic but for their own personal
aggrandizement. Yet although Negroes were implicated in
these offenses, few of them materially profited by this pro
cedure. Most Negro officers who served in the South came
out of office with an honorable record. Such was the case
with J. T. White, Commissioner of Public Works and Inter
nal Improvements in Arkansas, M. W. Gibbs, City Judge in
Little Rock, J. C. Corbin, State Superintendent of Schools
in the same State, F. L. Cardozo, State Treasurer of South
Carolina, T. Morris Chester, Brigadier General in charge

JAMES T. RAPIER, a mem
ber of Congress

254

The Negro In Our History

of the State Guards of Louisiana, and P. B. S. Pinchback,
Lieutenant and Acting Governor of Louisiana. Others who
held office elsewhere lived up to the same record. Chief
among these may be mentioned Frederick Douglass, who
served in the District of Columbia as Marshal and Re
corder of Deeds and abroad as Minister to Haiti.

Whether or not the Negro was capable, whether he was
honest, however, had little to do
with the southern white man s
attitude toward the Negro office
holders. To produce evidence
that the Negroes lacked these
essentials, the whites well knew,
Prejudice a would help them to
factor. justify themselves

to the world for using such harsh
measures to overthrow the new-
regime. But the Negro was un
acceptable merely because he was
black, because he had not en
joyed the distinction of wringing
his bread from the sweat of another s brow. Government,
as the southern man saw it, should be based on an aristo
cratic exploitation of the man far doAvn. As the slave
holders had for centuries enjoyed this exclusive privilege,
they could not but bear it grievously that it had been sud
denly taken away.

That the new governments were corrupt was not an ex
ception to the rule of that time. With the reorganization
of things throughout the country after the Civil War, and
Corruption the opening up of new industries and oppor-
explained. tunities in the undeveloped parts of this coun
try, there came an era of speculation, dishonest business,
and corrupt governments, implicating the highest State and
Federal functionaries. There never was a more corrupt

P. B. S. PlTVCHBACK, act

ing Governor of Louisiana

The Reconstruction 255

government than that conducted by the whites, constituting
the Tweed ring in New York. The very persons who com
plained of the corruption in the Negro carpet-bag govern
ments and who effected the reorganization of the State gov
ernments in the South when the Negroes were overthrown,
moreover, became just as corrupt as the governing class un
der the preceding regime. In almost every restored State
government in the South, and especially in Mississippi, the
white officers in control of the funds defaulted. These per
sons who had been so long out of office came back so eager
to get the most out of them that they filled their own pockets
from the coffers of the public.

In contradistinction to this rule of stealing from the pub
lic treasury, Debuclet, the Negro who served as Treasurer
of the State of Louisiana and who, when the government
of that State was taken from the Negroes by Excellent
the restored aristocrats, had still two years to record of
serve, was investigated with a view to finding uc **

out some act of misuse of the public funds that he might be
impeached and thrown out of office. The committee, of
which E. D. White, late Chief Justice of the United States
Supreme Court, was chairman, after much deliberation
reported that his funds had been honestly handled and that
there were no grounds on which proceedings against him
could be instituted.

The gravest charge against the Negroes seemed to grow
out of the unwritten law that the superior white race should
not be ruled by its inferiors. That there should be unusual
friction in communities where persons, who a Haughtiness,
few years prior to their elevation to citizenship had served
as goods and chattels, should at that time be passing among
the whites as civil and military officers, should excite little
surprise. But true students of history know that the Ne
groes were not especially anxious to put themselves forward.
While there were a good many among them seeking to be

256 The Negro In Our History

placed where they could not serve, the majority of the blacks
were anxious to secure the cooperation, of the best whites.
But because of the unusual antagonistic attitude of the
former slaveholders, feeling that the Negro should have
no part in the government at all, they refused to cooperate,
hoping that they could in some way effect the complete
elimination of the Negro from politics, as they have done in
recent years. The result, therefore, was that the Negroes
were in the beginning compelled to support for office white
men who had never been tried and who had in some cases
given evidence of dishonest purposes.

The argument against this, however, is that the Negroes
should not have been enfranchised and that the government
should have been organized among the loyal whites. To
Enfranchise- this it may be replied that there were few loyal
ment question, whites, and many of those who pretended that
they were and undertook to organize governments proved
to be just as oppressive as they ever had been, and in
fact undertook to reestablish slavery. Had there been a
close cooperation among the best whites in the South and a
gradual incorporation of the intelligent freedmen into the
electorate, many of the mistakes made would have been obvi
ated ; and the recent steps backward towards lynching and
peonage would not have been made.

These criticisms of the carpet-bag government had the
desired effect among the poor and ignorant whites who,
reared under the degrading influences of slavery, could not
Ku Klux Klan. tolerate the blacks as citizens. The Negroes
thereafter were harassed and harried by disturbing ele
ments of anarchy, out of which soon emerged an oath-bound
order called the Ku Klux Klan, terrorizing the Negroes
with lawlessness and violence. Congress, therefore, deemed
it necessary to pass a series of repressive measures, known
as " force bills," to protect the Negroes in the enjoyment of
the civil and political rights. The President was author-

The Reconstruction

258 The Negro In Our History

ized to suppress insurrection in the Southern States where
and when local authorities were powerless and might sus
pend the writ of habeas corpus. The jurisdiction of the
Federal courts was so extended as to take cognizance of
cases in which Negroes complained of being deprived of
their rights. This legislation also contemplated the use
of Federal troops to secure fair election in these States.
While these measures offered temporary relief they caused
such deep resentment in the South, especially among those
whites who were endeavoring to suppress mob violence,
that the South tended to become a smoldering volcano
awaiting an opportunity for eruption.

The denouement came from President Rutherford B.
Hayes in the withdrawal of the troops to the support of
whom he probably owed his doubtful election. The occasion
ipjjQ was the consideration of the question of con-

withdrawal tinuing the use of troops in South Carolina.
Hayes said: "In my opinion, there does not
now exist in that State such domestic violence as is con
templated by the Constitution as the ground upon which the
military power of the National Government may be invoked
for the defense of the State, but these are settled by
such orderly and peaceable methods as may be provided by
the Constitution and laws of the State. I feel assured that
no resort to violence is contemplated in any quarter, but
that, on the contrary, the disputes in question are to be set
tled solely by such peaceful remedies as the Constitution
and the laws of the State provide. "

The withdrawal of the national troops from the South
gave much relief to the whites in that section and pleased
a majority of the Northern citizens, who, despite the efforts
of the Southerners to break up the Union, could not support
the policy of forever afflicting them with martial law. The
Negroes and their sympathizers, however, have always con
sidered this the most unstatesman-like act any President

The Reconstruction 259

has committed since the war. They contend that it almost
immediately restored to power the unreconstructed element
which, because of the color of the freedmen, segregated,
disfranchised and lynched them to the extent that the
United States can now be criticized for not complying with
that clause of the Constitution guaranteeing every State
a republican form of government. These troops should
have undoubtedly been withdrawn by gradual process, in
the proportion that the districts thus relieved exhibited
evidence of the ability to protect all citizens in the enjoy
ment of their rights and privileges.

The closing chapter in the reconstruction is its undoing.
The whites reclaimed the governments from the Negroes.
Not only were they anxious to take over the offices and the
public funds, but to prevent the Negroes from ^Q un d i ng

participating thereafter in the governments of of the re-

. , construction,
those States they enacted measures which by

peculiar provisions in the laws of suffrage for the qualifica
tions of voters eliminated most Negroes from the electorate
on the grounds that they could not read and write, did not
own property, or were not descendants of persons who had
voted prior to certain dates. In this way they hedged
around the Fifteenth Amendment, which provided that the
right to vote should not be denied on account of race, color
or previous condition of servitude. They, moreover, cur
tailed the privileges of the Negroes by segregation laws
dealing first with places of amusements like theaters and
parks, with the schools, and finally with farming and resi
dential districts in most parts of the South.

CHAPTER XVII

FINDING A WAY OP ESCAPE

THE abridgment of the Negroes rights came as such a
calamity that for a generation following the restoration of
the reactionaries to power, the Negroes were in a state of
The confusion seeking to extricate themselves from

untoward their difficulties. 1 There then ensued a most
cruel persecution of the blacks by the degraded
and impecunious poor whites. Although assured that the
Negroes could not under the circumstances soon regain their
political rights, certain criminal communities have found
special delight in killing and lynching Negroes on account
of offenses for which a white man would hardly be accused,
if the complainant happened to be black. The local news
papers, by their art of psychological appeal to the race
prejudice of the masses, have succeeded in convincing the
public that the general cause of these lynchings was crimi
nal assault, but statistics show that ordinary misdemeanors
of Negroes have been the sole excuse for three out of every
four of these lynchings.

The extent to which the country has been disgraced by

i George W. Williams, History of the Negro Race, II, 375-380; C.
G. Woodson, A Century of Negro Migration, chs. VII and VIII; The
Atlantic Monthly, XLIV, page 222 et seq.; TheVicksburg Commercial,
May 6, 1919; The Nation, XXVIII, 242, 386; The American Journal
of Social Science, XI, 1-35; Public Opinion, XVIII, 370 et seq.; The
American Law Review, XL, 29, 52, 205, 227, 354, 381, 547, 590, 695,
758, 865, 905; Reports of Committees of the Senate of the United
States for the First and Second Sessions of the Forty-sixth Congress,
1879-1880, pp. iii-xiii.

260

Finding a Way of Escape 261

the institution of lynching may be more easily estimated by
a few statistics. According to General Sheridan, 3,500 per
sons were killed in the South during the first Lynching,
decade after emancipation ; 1,884 were killed and wounded
in 1868, and probably 1,200 between 1868 and 1875. Most
of these massacres occurred in the disturbed area of Louisi
ana. Following that period the number of Negroes annually
lynched in the whole country aggregated between fifty and
a hundred, and the whole number for the reconstruction
and readjustment periods not less than 2,500. As the
Negroes were no longer valuables attached to owners, as
horses or cattle, there was little to restrain the degraded
class from murdering them in communities where few white
men had any conception of the blacks as persons entitled to
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The economic situation in the South in the meantime be
came critical. The poor whites who were unwilling to labor
themselves so disturbed the Negroes that their employment
was precarious. The ex-slaveholders, more- The economic
over, imposed upon the Negroes willing to situation,
work. The Negroes were the only dependable laboring
classes in the South, and too many were trying to live on the
fruits of the Negroes labor. Whether aware or not of being
duped, the Negroes had to seek employment by the whites,
as they had no capital to operate farms and factories inde
pendently. Some of those who, during the happiest days of
reconstruction, succeeded in acquiring property, saw it
thereafter seized on the plea of delinquent taxes and trans
ferred to the master class.

The land in the South, moreover, remained mainly in
large tracts held by planters, who, except in the case of
poverty, never desired to dispose of it ; and even if they had
been thus inclined, the Negroes could not un- Land Tenure,
der the existing regime quickly earn sufficient money to
purchase large holdings. There was then no chance for the

262 The Negro In Our History

Negroes to develop at once into a desirable class of farmers.
They then became mainly a wage-earning element dependent
on the will of their employers. As few of the Negroes could
read and write, they were cheated in signing contracts and
had to suffer the consequent privations aggravated by
cruelty, if they unduly complained.

The wage system of the South early failed to give satis
faction, except in the sugar district. The planters then
made the experiment of working on shares, but had to
Wage system abandon this because the employer was not
tried. always able to advance the Negro tenant sup

plies pending the growth of the crop, and some insisted that
the Negro was too indifferent and lazy to make the partner
ship desirable. It was then decided to resort to the renting
system, which became the accepted tenure in the cotton
district. While this system apparently threw the tenant
on his own responsibility, it frequently made him the victim
Rent system, of his own ignorance and the rapacity of his
landlord. As the Negroes could do no better they had to
pay such high rent that they hardly derived from their labor
adequate returns to support their families.

The worst feature of the rent plan was its iniquitous
concomitant, the credit system. Having no capital to begin
with, a Negro tenant became dependent on his landlord for
The credit advance of supplies of tools, food and clothing
system. during the year, secured by a lien on the

crop. As these new tenants had had only a few years
of freedom to learn business methods, they became a prey
to dishonest men who, through their stores and banks, ex
torted from the Negroes practically all of their earnings be
fore the end of the year. A few honest planters desired to
protect the Negroes by supplying them at reasonable prices ;
but subject to usury themselves, their efforts availed little.
It was necessary then for the Negro tenant to begin the
year with three mortgages, covering all he owned, his labor

Finding a Way of Escape 263

for the coming year, and all he expected to acquire during
that twelvemonth. According to an observer of the time,
he paid "one-third of his product for the use of the land;
he paid an exorbitant fee for recording the contract, by
which he paid his pound of flesh; he was charged two or
three times as much as he ought to pay for ginning his cot
ton ; and, finally, he turned over his crop to be eaten up in
commissions, if any was still left to him."

Various means of escape from these conditions were there
fore considered. Some Negroes still looked forward to a
change in politics, believing that a reconstructed Republican
Party would again interfere in southern af- Remedies
fairs to relieve the Negroes. Others had the proposed,
idea that religion would be the solution of the problem.
They insisted that the calamities of the race resulted as
an affliction with which they had been visited because of
their wandering away from God, who would right their
wrongs as soon as they heeded His pleading voice.

The unrest, however, first found a safety valve in the
exodus of the Negroes. During the seventies a considerable
number of them moved from North Carolina to Indiana,
where because of the pivotal political situation in that State
their migration gave rise to the accusation that they were
being brought thither for the purpose of carrying doubtful
States for the Republican Party. A Congressional investi
gation proved that these charges were absurd. The larger
number of the Negroes who, during this period, were in
duced to move North, went not to Indiana but to Kansas,
because of its known attitude towards the black man as
evidenced by its willingness to bleed in behalf of freedom.

This movement was an organized one, promoted by two
men who were not widely known as race leaders but at
tained distinction as the organizers of one of The exodus
the most disturbing migrations ever effected to the West -
among Negroes. They were Henry Adams of Louisiana

264

The Negro In Our History

and Benjamin or "Pap" Singleton of Tennessee. Seeing
that the Negroes had almost lost the fruits of their emanci
pation and that there was little hope that their situation
would be greatly improved, they had organized a commit
tee which they later increased by the hundreds to circulate

information as to the intolerable
oppression of the blacks and the
opportunities in the West for re
lief therefrom. In this way, ac
cording to these promoters, they
interested 100,000 or 200,000
Negroes, although not more than
one-fourth or one-fifth of this
number actually went West.

This unusual movement of the
Negroes threatened the South
with economic ruin. The think
ing class saw that the section was
soon to lose the economic foundation of its prosperity,
and that if something were not speedily done the land
would doubtless become a waste place in the wilderness.
Meetings, therefore, were called among the whites and the
blacks to induce the latter to remain where they were. The
most important meeting of this kind was that held at
Alarm among Vicksburg, Mississippi, on May 6, 1879.
the planters. There were assembled the representatives of
the best of both races seeking to reach some conclusion as
how to deal with the situation. Frank expressions as to
the causes of the grievances were made on both sides, and
most persons concerned were willing to make such sacrifices
of personal feeling and opinion as to remedy the evils
complained of.

Unwilling to rely upon moral suasion, however, the whites
resorted to force to stop the exodus by denying the Negroes

R. T. GREENER

Finding a Way of Escape 265

transportation and imprisoning them on false charges; but
Negroes to the number of many thousands continued their
way West despite this opposition despite The resort
even the discouragement of their greatest to force,
leader, Frederick Douglass, who advised them to the con
trary, believing that it would be better for the blacks to re
main in the South where they would have sufficient num
bers to wield political power. The promoters of the
movement were fortunate in having the support of Richard
T. Greener and John M. Langston, who, having sufficient
foresight to see that the United States Government would
not soon interfere in behalf of the Negroes in the South,
advised them to flee from political oppression to a free
country, considering it a hopeful sign that the blacks had
passed through that stage of development of appealing to
philanthropy into that of appealing to themselves.

This rapid migration was soon checked, but the Negroes
gradually continued to go West into the industrial centers
of the Appalachian mountains and into the Southwest. The
masses of the Negroes, however, became set- The migration
tied in the South in a condition not much checked,
better than their former state ; for the planters forgot their
promises of better treatment just as soon as the exodus
ceased. The economic adjustment after the Civil War,
culminating in the resumption of specie payments in 1879,
moreover, brightened somewhat the dark age through which
the South was passing. During the eighties and nineties the
masses of Negroes could do little more than merely eke out
an existence, but following this period some of them pros
pered sufficiently to appreciate the difference between free
and slave labor. The income of the average Negro even
then, however, was very small. The most fortunate Negro
tenants or farmers did not generally come to the end of the
year with more than they needed to keep them while pro-

266

The Negro In Our History

ducing their crop during the next. The rural wage earner
did well to receive for his toil, from sunrise to sunset,
twenty-five or thirty cents a day, including board restricted
to half a gallon of meal and half a pound of fat bacon. Me
chanics believed that they were highly favored when they
earned from seventy-five cents to a dollar and a half a day.
In the midst of such circumstances, the Negroes could
not establish homes and
educate their children.
It was of much assistance
to the Negroes in the
Education South, how-
tried, ever, that the
North raised considerable
money and sent some of
her best citizens to found
institutions for the en
lightenment of the freed-
men. This philanthropic
scheme presupposed that
education in the classi
cal field was the urgent
need of Negroes, in that
it was essential to a proper understanding of the prob
lems of government, and that when this was supplied
the masses thus enlightened would have an advantage
by which they could triumph over all opposition. Heed
ing this call to avail themselves of such opportunities,
Negroes riot only crowded these institutions, like Howard,
Fisk, Lincoln, Morehouse, and Atlanta, but began to
establish higher institutions of their own. Out of these
schools came not many scholars, but enthusiastic teach
ers devoted to the enlightenment of their people, a large
number of race-leading preachers proclaiming religion as
the solution of the problem, many well informed orators,

J. C. PRICE

Finding a Way of Escape

267

like J. C. Price and William Pickens, and educating con
troversialists, like Kelly Miller and W. E. B. DuBois.
Under different conditions these men, no doubt, would have
been historians, scientists, or mathematicians, but their race
was passing through the ordeal of kith and kin democracy,
and their talent had to be impressed into the service of

exposing the folly of
the reactionaries promo
ting the return to me
dieval civilization in
proscribing the citizen
ship of the Negroes.

The majority of the
Negroes in the South
finally be- Resignation
came set- to fate,
tied to conditions as
they were, endeavoring
to make the most of
a n undesirable situa
tion; but Negroes who,
having experienced men
tal development, had
had their hearts fired
with the desire to enjoy the rights so eloquently set forth
by their uncompromising leaders, endeavored to escape
from their political and civic humiliation. To these Ne
groes of talent it seemed that the South would never
be a decent place to live in, especially when the North
turned a deaf ear to the pleadings of their spokesmen
sent thither to portray to the children of the Negroes
form.er friends exactly how the fruits of their victory
for human rights had been permitted seemingly to perish
from the earth. After the reconstruction period, the
North was too busy in developing its industries and had es-

KELLY MILLER

268 The Negro In Our History

tablished too close relations with the South to think of
severing these ties. The prevailing opinion was that the
South should be permitted to deal with the Negroes as it
felt disposed.

As the South, in this position of renewed supremacy, be
came increasingly intolerant of the talented f reedmen, many
of them left. To this the whites offered no objection what-
Cnielty of ever. The exodus of the intelligent Negroes
the restored was much desired by the southerners, for every
one migrating diminished the chances of the
Negro for mental development, a thing which most south
erners believed spoils the Negro. It has been the policy of
most Anglo-Saxon nations to keep in ignorance the exploited
races, that in their ignorant state the one group may be
arrayed against the other to prevent them from reaching
the point of self-assertion. In keeping with that same
policy southerners would not only not encourage but would
have little dealing with the talented Negroes, and in mak
ing desire father to the thought, insisted that there were no
intelligent Negroes. Well might some sections reasonably
reach this conclusion as to the mental development of the
Negroes, if it is to be judged by the amount of money
spent for their education. In its backward state the South
could not afford large appropriations for education, but in
most of the districts the Negro public schools were almost a
mockery, and with the exception of the State industrial
schools almost no provision at all was made for the higher
education of the Negro after the undoing of reconstruc
tion.

In the effort to get away from the South there was a
renewal of the colonization scheme under the leadership of
Colonization Bishop H. M. Turner. With the encourage-
again, ment of Senator Morgan of Alabama, who,
after the reactionaries had well completed the task of
depriving the Negroes of their rights, felt that they should

Finding a Way of Escape

269

then go to a foreign land to develop independently a nation
of their own, it seemed that the plan might prove feasible.
Some thought again of Africa as the place of refuge, but
the memory of the antebellum struggle of the free Negroes
to defeat that enterprise
made that continent too
frightening to attract
many. In the early nine
ties, a few Negroes emi
grated to Mapimi, Mexico,
from which, after some
hardships, they returned
to their homes in Georgia
and Alabama. Resorting
to Africa then, 197 Ne
groes sailed from Savan
nah, Georgia, for Liberia
in 1895. The expedition
to Liberia was not as un
successful as that to Mex
ico, but the deportationists soon discovered in carrying
out their plan that it is impossible to expatriate a whole
race.

Many of the talented Negroes who had been conspicuous
in politics, thereafter decided to yield to the white man s
control, and devoted themselves to the accumulation oi
wealth. But, as hell is never full and the eyes Terrorism,
of man are never satisfied, the mere domination did not
meet all of the requirements of the degraded class of whites.
Slavery had made them brutal. They had been accustomed
to drive, to mutilate, to kill Negroes, and such traits could
not be easily removed. The reign of terror, ostensibly
initiated to overthrow the carpet-bag governments by means
of the Ku Klux Klan, continued, and it became a special
delight for the poor whites to humiliate and persecute the

BISHOP H. M. TURNER, a fearless
spokesman for his people

270 The Negro In Our History

Negroes who had acquired education and accumulated some
wealth. The effort was to make the Negro realize that he
lives in a white man s country in which law for the Negro is
the will of the white man with whom he meets. The Negroes
had to undergo punishment for presuming to assume the
reins of government during the reconstruction. They had
to be convinced that this country will never permit another
such revolution. Further legislation to restrict suffrage in-
alterably to the whites as a majority, to deprive Negroes of
the right to serve in the State Militia, to segregate them in
public conveyances, and exclude them from places of enter
tainment, soon followed as a necessity for maintaining
white supremacy, so precarious has its tenure at times
seemed.

At the same time the laboring Negroes not only saw them
selves overwhelmed by a rent and credit system which would
not pass away, but lost further ground in the new form of
slavery called peonage, which once had legal sanction in
Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina,
Peonage. and South Carolina. This was a sort of in

voluntary servitude by which the laborer is considered
bound to serve his master until a debt he has contracted
is paid. The origin of this was in a custom in Mexico,
and the opportunity lay in the poverty of the Negroes
who had to borrow from the whites. In working to pay
these debts they must still borrow to live. As the white
man was the bookkeeper and his statement of account was
law in the courts, it was the former master s prerogative
to say how much the peon owed, to determine exactly when
he should leave his service, or whether he should ever leave.

Peons during these years were recruited from another
source. In collusion with courts arranging with the police
Peonage and to arrest a required number of Negroes to
the courts. secure the desired amount in fees and fines, in
nocent Negroes were commonly arrested, and when fined in

Finding a Way of Escape 271

court had to agree to enter the service of some white man,
who would pay their fines for the opportunity to reduce
them to involuntary servitude. A brief account from one of
these peonage districts is sufficient to illustrate this point.
Passing along the street where a Negro was employed by a
white man, a sympathetic observer noticed that his employer
frequently kicked and cuffed the Negro when he was not
working satisfactorily. Why do you stand this ? Why do
you not have this man arrested for assault?" inquired the
observer. "That is just the trouble now," responded the
Negro.. "I complained to the court when another white
man beat me, and the judge imposed upon me a fine
which I could not pay, so I have to work it out in the
service of this man who paid it to have the opportunity
to force me to work for him." The Supreme Court of
the United States undertook to put an end to such legis
lation in 1911 by declaring the Alabama peonage law un
constitutional, but in the many districts where there is
no healthy public opinion to the contrary or where the
employer is a law unto himself, peonage has continued
in spite of the feeble effort of the Federal Government
to eradicate the evil.

These increasing encroachments convinced many think
ing Negroes that they should no longer endure such
humiliation. They could not adequately educate their
children at public expense, although taxed to Negroes go-
support the public schools ; they enjoyed little ***& North,
security in the possession of property, and dared not defend
their families from insult. Their first thought, then, was
to go North. For more than a century the North, de
spite its lack of hospitality for the Negroes, had remained
in their minds as a place of refuge. From time imme
morial Negroes had gone to that section, and sometimes
in considerable numbers. During the nineties and the
first decade of the present century these numbers decidedly

272 The Negro In Our History

increased and brought nearer home to the North the so-
called race problem.

There went first the dethroned politicians who, when
failing to secure employment in Washington, endeavored
to solve the problem by migration. A few Negroes well
Politicians established in business, moreover, closed up

leaving the their affairs and moved out. The educated Ne-
South.

groes especially the Negro college graduates

who were imbued with the principles of justice set forth
by Pickens, Trotter and DuBois had too much appreciation
for freedom to remain longer where they were politically
and socially proscribed. A few professional men, who under
the undesirable conditions were reduced to want, also made
their escape. Intelligent laborers who knew that they were
not receiving the proper returns from their labor tired also
of the ordeal and went in due time to try life in other parts.
In fact, this slow but steady migration was a gradual draw
ing off from the South of the most advanced classes, those
best qualified to lead the race more rapidly toward achieve
ment. In its backward state, however, the South could not
appreciate this loss, so willing has it been to pay the high
cost of race prejudice.

The undesirable feature of this migration was that it
was mainly to the cities. The hostility of the trades unions
to the Negroes was already a handicap rendering their
The rush presence in large northern cities a problem,

to cities. an( j th e i ncrease O f numbers resulting from

this influx aggravated the situation. It was further aggra
vated in the course of time when, because of the increasing
popularity of the North, many Negroes "just happened" to
go. Some went on excursions to Columbus, Indianapolis,
Chicago, Cleveland, and the like, and never returned South.
In the North, moreover, educated Negroes had to follow
drudgery rather than to practice professions or work at

Finding a Way of Escape 273

skilled labor as they could in the South. They were willing,
however, to pay this price for social and political rights,
hoping that at some time the fates would bring it to pass
that they would secure an economic foundation in the North.
The attainment of this end, notwithstanding some encourag
ing events, however, has been a battle against well-estab
lished precedents in the effort to maintain the economic su
premacy of the laboring whites, who feel that they should
not be compelled to compete with Negroes. In labor, as in
other things, they contend, the sphere of great remuneration
must be restricted to the white man, and drudgery to the
Negro.

Some systematic efforts were made to break down the
barriers of these trades unions. "White men, like Eugene V.
Debs, high in the councils of these bodies, attacked this
medieval attitude of the white laborers, but to no avail.
As Negroes in the North and West, therefore, Trades unions,
were pitted against the trades unions, they embittered much
the feeling between the races by allying themselves with the
capitalists to serve as strike breakers. In this case, how
ever, the trades unions themselves were to be blamed. The
only time the Negroes could work under such circumstances
was when the whites were striking, and it is not surprising
that some of them easily yielded then to the temptation.
In those unions in which the Negroes were recognized they
stood with their white coworkers in every instance of mak
ing a reasonable demand of their employers. Some of these
unions, however, accepted Negroes merely as a subterfuge
to prevent them from engaging in strike-breaking. When
the Negroes appealed for work, identifying themselves as
members of the union in control, they were turned away
with the explanation that no vacancies existed, while white
men were gladly received.

As a rule, therefore, the Negroes migrating to the North

274 The Negro In Our History

had to do menial service. It was pathetic for the traveler
to see Negroes, once well established in a business in the
In menial South, reduced to service as porters to earn a
service. living in the North. The Negroes were so

scattered in the North that they did not supply the oppor
tunity for mutual help, and since the whites were not
willing- to concede economic opportunity the northern Ne
groes were, so to speak, isolated in the midst of a medieval
civilization founded on the caste of color. While the migrat
ing Negroes of intelligence hid their lights under a bushel
in the North, the illiterate Negroes in the South, in need of
their assistance in education and enterprise, too often fell
Results in into the hands of the harpies and sharks,
the South. many of whom had the assistance of un
scrupulous Negroes in plundering these unfortunates.

There came forward then a Negro with a new idea.
He said to his race : Cast down your buckets where you
are. In other words, the Negroes must work out their sal
vation in the South. He was a native of Virginia. He had
Booker T. keen trained at Hampton and under adverse
Washington s circumstances had founded a school in Ala
bama, affording him the opportunity to study
the Negroes in all their aspects. Seeing that the need of
the Negro was a foundation in things economic, he came
forward with the bold advocacy of industrial education of
the Negroes "in those arts and crafts in which they are
now employed and in which they must exhibit greater effi
ciency if they are to compete with the white men." The
world had heard this before, but never had an educator so
expounded this doctrine as to move the millions. This man
was Booker T. Washington.

The celebrated pronunciamento of Washington was set
forth in his address at the Atlanta Exposition in 1895, and
his educational theory and practice have not since ceased
to be a universal topic. He insisted that since the Negroes

Finding a Way of Escape

275

had to toil they should be taught to toil skillfully. He did
not openly attack higher education for Negroes, but insisted
that in getting an education they should be The Atlanta
sure to get some of that which they can use. Address.
In other words, the only education worth while is that which
reacts on one s life in his
peculiar situation. A
youth, then, should not be
educated away from his
environment, but trained
to lay a foundation for
the future in his present
situation, out of which he
may emerge into something
above and beyond his be
ginnings.

Washington s plan was
received by the white peo
ple in the South as a safe
means by which they could
promote Negro education
along lines different from
those followed in the edu
cation of the white man,
so as to make education
mean one thing for the whites and another for the Negroes.
The North was at first divided on the ques- Washington s
tion. The sympathetic class felt that such a P lan accepted,
policy would reduce the Negroes as a whole to a class of
laborers and thus bar them from the higher walks of life
through which the race must come to recognition and promi
nence. The wealthy class of whites in the North took the
position that there was much wisdom in Washington s
policy, and with the encouragement which they have given
his industrial program, with the millions with which they

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

276

The Negro In Our History

Have endowed Tuskegee and Hampton, and the support
given the many other schools established on that basis,
they, in less than a generation, have brought most northern
people around to their way of thinking.

The Negroes, however, with exception of a small minority,
regarded this policy as a
surrender to the oppres
sors who desired to re
duce the whole race to
menial service, and they
proceeded militantly to
attack Washington, brand-
Opposition to ing him with
Washington. t ft e oppro
brium of a traitor to his
people. In the course of
time, however, when the
South, following the ad
vice and example of Wash
ington, reconstructed its
educational system for
Negroes and began to sup
ply these schools with fac
ulties recommended by
men interested in indus
trial education and too

often by Washington himself, there were gradually elevated
to leadership many Negroes who, in standing for industrial
education, largely increased the support of Washington
among his people. When, moreover, his influence as an
educator extended into all ramifications of life, even into
politics, to the extent that he dictated the rise and fall of
all Negroes occupying positions subject to the will of the
whites, that constituency was so generally increased that
before he died there were few Negroes who dared criticize

W. E. B. DuBois

Finding a Way of Escape

277

him in public or let it be known that they were not in
sympathy with his work.

Against this policy, however, there always stood forth
some Negroes who would not yield ground. The most out
spoken among these were W. M. Trotter and W. E. B.
DuBois. These men have had the idea that Trotter and
the first efforts to secure recognition for the DuBois -
Negro must come through agitation for higher educa
tion and political equality.
What they demand for
the Negro is the same op
portunity, the same treat
ment, generally given the
white man. To accept any
thing less means treachery.
Feeling that Washington s
position was a compromise
on these things, they per
sistently denounced him
from the rostrum and
through the press in spite
of the great personal sac
rifices which they thereby
suffered. DuBois lost the
support of white friends who cannot understand why all
Negroes do not think alike, and Trotter suffered unusual
humiliation because he undertook by unlawful means to
break up one of Washington s meetings in Boston.

This agitation has exhibited evidences of unusual vitality.
It has given rise to widely circulated organs which stand
for equal rights and equal opportunities in short, for a
square deal for all men regardless of race, color or previous
condition of servitude. One of these, The Crisis, is now a
self-supporting popular magazine with a circulation of
almost 100,000. It is the organ of the National Association

OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD

278

The Negro In Our History

for the Advancement of Colored People, a movement
launched by the remnant of the abolition and reform ele
ment of the North, in connection with the militant Negroes.
The personnel of the management of the Association is com
posed of some of the most prominent Negroes and white men

and women of the country.
Among these are Oswald
Garrison V i 1 1 a r d, the
grandson of William Lloyd
Garrison ; Moorfield Storey,
one of the most prominent
members of the American
Bar; Joel E. Spingarn,
a scholar of national repu
tation; Jane Addams, the
social reformer; and A.
H. Grimke, a fearless ad
vocate of equality for all.
While the Association and
its promoters may have at
times gone rather far in
blaming Washington for
his silence, it has neverthe
less kept before the Ne
groes the ideal which they must attain if they are to count
as a significant factor in this country.

Washington s long silence as to the rights of the Negro,
however, did not necessarily mean that he was in favor of
the oppression of the race. He was aware of the fact that
An unjust the mere agitation for political rights could
criticism. not at t h at t j me be O f muc h benefit to the race,

and that their economic improvement, a thing fundamental
in real progress, could easily be promoted without incurring
the disapproval of the discordant elements in the South. He
may be justly criticized for permitting himself to be drawn

MOORFIELD STOREY, President of the
National Association for the Ad
vancement of Colored People

Finding a Way of Escape 279

into certain entanglements in which he of necessity had to
make some blunders. As an educator, however, he stands
out as the greatest of all Americans, the only man in the
Western Hemisphere who has succeeded in effecting a revo
lution in education. A few centuries hence, when this coun
try becomes sufficiently civilized to stand the truth about
the Negro, history will record that Booker T. Washington,
in trying to elevate his oppressed people, so admirably
connected education with the practical things of life that
he effected such a reform in the education of the world as
to place himself in the class with Pestalozzi, Froebel and
Herbart. The Negroes as a whole have little to say now
against his educational policy, seeing that the white people
have realized that industrial education is not only a good
thing for the Negro but a blessing to the white man. The
whites have accordingly proceeded to spend millions of dol
lars for buildings and equipment to secure these advantages
to their youth. Washington s advocacy of industrial educa
tion, moreover, in spite of all that has been said, was not
a death blow to higher education for the Negro. That
movement has lived in spite of opposition, and Wash
ington himself frequently stated that industrial education,
as he emphasized it, was for the masses of the people who
had to toil. He did not object to higher education, knowing
that the race had to have men to lead it onward.

CHAPTER XVIII

ACHIEVEMENTS IN FREEDOM

DURING the years when the Negroes have had all sorts
of advice as to how they might emerge from the muddle of
controversy about the best solution of their problems, they
An era of have not all spent their time in academic dis-
progress. cussion. Building upon the foundation that

they made before the Civil War, the Negroes have developed
into one of the most constructive elements in our economic
system. 1 The census of 1910 shows that although the Ne
groes constitute about thirty per cent of the population of
the South, more than half of the agricultural laborers of
that section are Negroes. In the main, moreover, the Ne
groes are useful citizens, showing little tendency to become
peddlers, agents, and impostors who make their living rob
bing the people. On the corners of the streets in some cities
there may be found a few Negroes who are not disposed to
work for a living, but these constitute a small fraction of
one per cent of the Negro population of the United States.

The census reports will help us further to determine
what the Negroes in this country have been doing. In 1910,
5,192,535, or 71 per cent, of the 7,317,922 Negroes between

i The statistics bearing on the progress of the Negro are found
in the United States Census Reports. Other valuable facts may be
obtained from Monroe N. Work s Negro Year Book and the files of
The Crisis. There is also Mr. Henry E. Baker s informing article on
The Negro in the Field of Invention (in the Journal of Negro His
tory, II, 21-36). Dr. Thomas J. Jones s Negro Education in two
volumes throws light on what has been going on in that field during
the last half century.

280

Achievements In Freedom 281

the ages of 10 years and over were engaged in agriculture,
forestry and animal husbandry. In the number employed
in agriculture are included 893,370 farmers, Occupations
planters and overseers ; 218,972 were owners, of N^ 068 -
672,964 tenants, and 1,434 managers. Owners free of debt
possessed 8,835,857 acres, owners having mortgaged farms
had 4,011,491, and part owners 2,844,188. There were
12,876,308 acres operated by cash tenants; 13,691,494
by share tenants, and 349,779 by managers. This area of
42,279,510 acres will appear more realistic when one real
izes that it is as large as New England, or Belgium and
Holland combined.

The field in which most Negroes have been employed is
agriculture, and next to that domestic and personal service.
While in most of the unskilled occupations the Negroes
constitute a larger percentage than their per- Unskilled
centage of the entire population, the increasing labor -
number of skilled laborers has reduced the percentage of
unskilled laborers from a very high mark to about seventy
per cent. The standard of the unskilled laborer, moreover,
has been raised, peonage has been gradually giving way to
a system of wages, the intelligence of the workmen has in
creased, and the Negro laborers have become so dependable
that despite the large influx of immigrants they have been
able to withstand the competition. So much improvement
in the Negro unskilled laborer has been made during the
last generation that his increasing efficiency has rendered
difficult the distinction between skilled and unskilled labor.

Eecent statistics as to the number of Negroes employed
at skilled labor will further emphasize this point. Accord
ing to the census of 1910 there were among the males 12,401
brick and stone masons, 9,727 blacksmiths, skilled
8,035 glaziers, painters and varnishers, 6,175 labor -
plasterers, 5,188 locomotive firemen, 4,802 stationary engi
neers, 3,296 machinists and millwrights, 2,304 coopers,

The Negro In Our History

Achievements In .Freedom

283

2,285 plumbers, and gas and steam fitters, 2,156 molders,
and 4,652 tailors. At the same time there were among the
females, 38,148 dressmakers and seamstresses, 8,267 opera
tors in cigar and tobacco factories, and 6,163 employed in
general manufacturing.

Building upon these achievements in labor, the Negroes
have towered higher and higher in the professions. In 1910

THE RESIDENCE OF MADAME C. J. WALKER

one Negro out of every 146 was engaged in some profes
sional pursuit, whereas one white person in Negroes in
every 51 was thus engaged. The proportion Professions,
of clergymen among Negroes exceeded that among the
whites, but in the other cases the whites showed the excess
of the ratio of population to professional workers. While it
appears that professions among Negroes are still under
manned, a decided increase in this direction has been noted
during the last generation. It means a great deal to be able
after fifty years of freedom to produce 29,485 teachers,

284 The Negro In Our History

5,606 musicians and teachers of music, 3,077 physicians and
surgeons, 478 dentists, 798 lawyers, 123 chemists, 329
artists, sculptors and teachers of art, 247 authors, editors
and reporters, 59 architects, and 237 civil engineers. That
they have in half a century achieved enough in the profes
sions to bring them within the range of comparison with
the whites is striking evidence of the ability of the Negro
to meet the test of competition.

This growing usefulness of the Negro in the new fields has
meant a corresponding reduction in the numbers of those
disposed to waste their time. The criminal class of the
Less crime. Negroes in America, therefore, has decidedly
improved, despite the reports to the contrary. These false
alarms are based largely on unwarranted charges growing
out of the convict lease system and the imposition of unjust
fines for ordinary misdemeanors and such petty offenses
as vagrancy. The attitude of the Negroes themselves to
ward maintaining the peace is well reflected in their efforts
to better conditions by establishing law and order leagues
working in cooperation with the local governments. To
further this cause the Negroes have had the cooperation of
the Southern Sociological Congress and the University Race
Commission, which, although far from being unbiased, have
done some good. These organizations are endeavoring to
investigate the causes of the crimes of the whites against
Negroes, as well as crimes of the latter. Both races have
been much aided by the abolition of the liquor traffic.

The actual forces which have in general effected the im
provement in the Negro race, however, have been strictly
Negro organizations themselves. Chief among these are the
Negro churches, social welfare agencies, and schools. In
Churches as 1906 the Negroes of white denominations had
factors. 6,210 churches with 514,571 communicants,

5,330 Sunday schools, 293,292 scholars, and property worth
$12,107,655. The independent Negro denominations had

Achievements In Freedom 285

33,220 churches with 3,789,898 communicants, 30,999 Sun
day schools, 1,452,095 scholars, arid property valued at
$45,191,422. These churches are in the main Baptist and
Methodist. While the latter are divided into three groups,
known as the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the
African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, and the Colored
Methodist Episcopal Church, the Baptists had until the
schism of 1916 only one national organization, exercising
loose supervision over the whole denomination. Although
smaller in numbers, however, these various Methodist
churches have, by their well constructed organizations, been
able to accomplish much in the extension of religion and
education through their thirty-six well-informed bishops
and enterprising general officers. The work of other de
nominations, like the Episcopalians, the Presbyterians, Con-
gregationalists and the Catholics, has also been very effective
in Negro uplift wherever they have secured a following.

Cooperating with these have come the 3,077 physicians,
surgeons, and dentists, preachers of health, supplementing
the work of the ministers of the gospel. They have been able
to call the attention of entire communities to Physicians,
the necessity of observing the laws of health and of making
the community a decent place to live in. These well-trained
men have therefore been able to supplement the work of
the Anti-Tuberculosis League and the American Hygiene
Association and to extend the operations of the annual
school conferences held at Atlanta University, Hampton,
and Tuskegee. So much good has been recently accom
plished by the staff of workers lecturing to the soldiers in
the camps on social hygiene that national bodies promoting
health are now paying more attention to the problems of
Negroes. As a result of this persistent struggle against
io-norance, poverty and negligence, the mortality rate
among Negroes has decreased and much improvement has
been noted in their physique.

286 The Negro In Our History

To do for the race some of the things which the church
has not accomplished, social welfare work was undertaken
among Negroes decades ago. The first colored Young Men s
Christian Association was organized in Washington, D. C.,
Work of the in 1853 by Anthony Bowen, a man of color ;
Y. M. 0. A. t h e secon( j j n Charleston, South Carolina, in
1866 ; and the third in New York City in 1867. The first
colored Student Association was organized at Howard Uni
versity in 1869. E. V. C. Cato, of the New York City
Branch, attended the Montreal Convention in 1867 as the
first Negro delegate thus to serve. In 1876 George D.
Brown, ex-Confederate soldier, was appointed to supervise
the Negro Branches of the Young Men s Christian Asso
ciation throughout the country. In 1888, however, the
lamented William A. Hunton, a man of color, who had been
appointed as general secretary of the Negro Young Men s
Christian Association of Norfolk, Virginia, was appointed
to succeed Mr. Brown, and thereafter the work has been
under the supervision of Negro secretaries.

The work was greatly extended with some difficulty, and
was given much needed impetus by the accession to the
ranks of enterprising secretaries laboring in many cities
and in most Negro schools of the South. Interesting here
The growth. and there persons who were prejudiced against
the movement because of the failure to understand it, these
gentlemen gradually worked their way into the very hearts
of indifferent communities until in almost all of the large
cities where Negroes are found in considerable numbers,
business and professional men of both races, thanks to the
noble example set by the large donations of Julius Kosen-
wald, have united to establish for Negroes branches of the
Young Men s Christian Association, where they enjoy a
comradeship and temporary home-like life which the
transient of color could not theretofore find in those cities.
Recently an effort has been made to provide for young

Achievements In Freedom 287

women in these centers the same facilities, and the success
of the useful branches of the Young Women s Christian
Association already established in New York, Washington,
Louisville and St. Louis, has been sufficient encouragement
to the authorities in charge to provide elsewhere similar
facilities for women of color.

As a result of the work of these agencies the home life of
the Negroes has been decidedly improved. Every Negro,
of course, has not heeded the advice of his friends, and the
fact that some have lagged behind while oth- improvements
ers have gone forward makes it no longer ^ homes -
possible to speak of all Negroes as belonging to two classes,
as it was before the Civil War when they were known as
slaves and free persons of color. Negro homes now show
the same difference in standards as found among the whites.
The majority of Negroes have advanced beyond the point of
being satisfied with a one-roomed hut conspicuous by its lack
of ordinary comforts. They are buying land and building
houses of several rooms. An effort is made to decorate
the walls and supply the home with adequate furniture.
Negro children attending school read the latest books, news
papers, and magazines. Where the evidence of such progress
is not manifest it is possible in most cases to show that,
because of economic conditions, the Negroes concerned have
been too much handicapped by poverty to improve their
situation as they would like. Recent improvements in their
economic situation, however, have made these conditions
exceptions to the rule.

For the remaking of Negroes most credit must be given
to the schools at work among them. The teacher has made
the school, the school has figured largely in the making of
the home, and the home has produced a new The Efforts
civilization. While, despite the efforts of of schools,
kindly disposed educators like Kuffner, Curry, and Dillard,
the facilities for education offered Negroes in the public

288

The Negro In Our History

schools of the South have been unusually meager, hardly
extending beyond that of teaching them to read and write,
there have been offered in schools maintained in the South
by northern philanthropy opportunities for so much en
lightenment that teachers going out from these institutions
have come to their people like missionaries inspired to
preach a new gospel to the lowly. Lincoln and Wilberforce

Universities set a high
standard for the educa
tion of the Negroes prior
to the Civil War, and
Howard University, under
its distinguished founder,
General 0. O. Howard,
undertook to equip for
leadership a number of
youths of color so to toil
for the enlightenment of
their people as to mark a
new epoch in their prog
ress. A large number of
other philanthropists hav
ing the same ideals as the
founders of these institu
tions, established others, like Fisk, Atlanta, Tougaloo,
Talladega, Morehouse, Livingstone, Knoxville, and Straight.
Industrial Then came Hampton, Tuskegee and the like,
schools. directing attention primarily to the educa

tion of the masses in things fundamental so as to enable
the youth to begin with life where he is and to make of
it what his opportunities will permit.

Meeting thus in a way almost every need for Negro edu
cation, offering facilities for training of all sorts, the Negro
schools have been very successful because of the impetus
given them by such philanthropists as William H. Baldwin,

JULIUS ROSENWALD

Achievements In Freedom

289

Jr., Robert C. Ogden, H. H. Rogers, John D. Rockefeller,
Andrew Carnegie, and Julius Rosenwald, through their lib
eral contributions to the establishment and the Aid f rom
development of various institutions. While philanthro-
education may at times have been ill assorted, P ists -
in that persons have without giving due consideration to
their capacity and opportunities wasted time undertaking to
master things to which they were ill adapted and which
they would never have to
do, the readjustment has
worked out in such a way
that Negroes, like the
whites, now have oppor
tunities to equip them
selves for whatever they
feel disposed to do, and
in life they have exhibited
the same mental endow
ment found among the
people of all other races.
The good work of these

institutions has been ef- ANDREW CARNEGIE. The donor of
fective in putting the Ne- $600,000 to Tuskegee. The first
gro on his feet, so to speak,
enabling the Negro to do

for himself what the thou-

philanthropist to set the ex
ample of giving large sums
of money for the eleva
tion and development of

the Negro race.
6f Sympathetic and Copyright by Marceau.

benevolent whites of the missionary spirit had to do for
the Negroes in leaving their homes in the North. Out of
these schools have come thousands of Ne- Trained to
groes of scholarly tendencies who have, in de- leadership,
voting their time and means to the study of educational
problems and school administration, equipped themselves
for leadership in education in the South. It has for some
time been a matter of much regret that white persons in

The Negro In Our History

JOHN I). ROCKEFELLER AND HIS Sox. Through appropriations of the
General Education Board and the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Me
morial large sums have come from these philanthropists to agencies
engaged in the uplift and the education of the Negro.

Achievements In Freedom

291

charge of schools maintained by philanthropy in the South
have failed to recognize this ability of the Negro and still
adhere to the policy of restricting them to subordinate posi
tions. Negroes have borne it grievously that they have had
to contend with white persons who feel that whenever a
Negro is given a position of responsibility he needs careful

watching or supervision by some
white man that it may be done
in keeping with some estab
lished policy.

The Negroes have not only
learned lessons in religion, edu
cation and health, progress In
but have shown business,
unusual progress in the business
world. They have accumulated
so much property in the rural
districts that they constitute a
desirable class of small farmers.
R. R. MOTON, the Principal I n the cities in which recently

there has taken place the concen
tration of large numbers of Negroes, enterprising men of
color are gradually taking over business formerly monopo
lized by whites. Near a Negro church you will find an
undertaker of color. In almost any Negro urban com
munity there is a successful real estate dealer, a reliable
contractor, an insurance office, and sometimes a bank. So
popular has it become for Negroes to deal with their own
people, that white men owning business in Negro sections
have learned to employ considerable Negro help.

The Negro in business, however, is not a new thing. The
point to be noted here is the unusual progress of the race in
this field during recent years. It is more Unusual
than encouraging, moreover, to observe how achievements,
easily the Negroes have learned the lesson of pooling their

292 The Negro In Our History

efforts in larger enterprises. To promote the economic
progress of the race, Negroes have been wise enough to or
ganize several efficient agencies. The first of these to attain
importance was the National Business League founded by
Dr. Booker T. Washington. There are also the National
Negro Bankers Association, the National Association of
Funeral Directors and the National Negro Retail Mer
chants Association. Negro fraternal organizations, al
though established for social purposes, have in recent years
taken on a business aspect in providing for the purchase
of property and the insurance of the lives of their mem
bers. In some parts of the South the Negroes use no other
insurance, and the managers of this work constitute in
reality an industrial insurance company. The Negroes
have about fifty banks and ten insurance companies, three
of which are regular old line life insurance companies.
In 1910, 3,208 Negroes were employed in banking and
brokerage, 2,604 in insurance, and 1,095 in real estate.

Among these captains of industry thus pressing forward
should be mentioned John W. Lewis, President of the In
dustrial Savings Bank and the Whitelaw Apartment House
Captains of Corporation of Washington; Samuel W.
industry. Rutherford, secretary of the National Benefit

Association of the same city; Isaiah T. Montgomery, the
capitalist of Mound Bayou, Mississippi; John Merrick,
founder of the North Carolina Mutual and Provi
dent Association ; R. L. Smith, the organizer of the Farm
ers Improvement Society of Texas; Heman E. Perry,
President of the Standard Life Insurance Company
of Atlanta; and the late Madame C. J. Walker, the manu
facturer of toilet articles, out of which she accumulated
more than a million dollars worth of property. The Ne
groes in the United States now own property worth more
than a billion dollars.

In the midst of the busy bustle and the economic de-

Achievements In Freedom 293

velopment of the United States since the Civil War the
Negro has not only demonstrated his ability to accumulate
a portion of the world s goods, but has by his inventive
genius contributed much toward the economic inventive
progress of the country. As to exactly how s enlus -
many Negroes have appeared in the field of invention we
are still in doubt. The United States Patent Office has not
in all cases kept a record as to the race of the applicants.
While in many instances the racial connection has been
easily determined, an investigation has shown that many
inventors of color have not disclosed facts to this effect be
cause the value of the invention might thereby be depre
ciated. By correspondence with patent attorneys and the
inventors themselves it has been established as a fact that
there are in the United States Patent Office a record of 1,500
inventions made by Negroes. This number, no doubt, is
only a fraction of those which have been actually assigned
to persons of color.

Some of these inventions have been remarkable. Prob
ably the most significant one of them is that of a machine
for lasting shoes invented by Jan E. Matzeliger, a Negro
born in Dutch Guiana in 1852. Early in his Matzeliger.
youth Matzeliger came to this country and served as an
apprentice at the cobbler s trade in Philadelphia and in
Lynn, Massachusetts. Undergoing unusual hardships which
undermined his health, Matzeliger applied his brain to
working out a labor-saving device by which his trade might
be relieved from drudgery. He invented, therefore, a last
ing machine which adjusted the shoe, arranged the leather
over the sole, and drove in the nails. Matzeliger died in
1889, in his thirty-seventh year, before he could realize the
value of his invention. The patent was bought by Sydney
W. Winslow, who, upon the advantages derived from this
machine, established the well-known United Shoe Machinery
Company, which absorbed over 40 smaller corporations.

294 The Negro In Our History

This company is operated now with a capital stock of more
than $20,000,000, employing 5,000 operators in factories
covering more than twenty acres of ground. Within the
twenty years from the time of its incorporation its product
increased from $220,000 to $242,631,000 and the shoes ex
ported increased from 1,000,000 to 11,000,000. As a result
the cost of shoes decreased fifty per cent, the wages of the
operators decidedly increased, the working hours dimin
ished, and laboring conditions improved.

Some other inventions of Negroes of less consequence
were of much value and deserve mention. J. H. Dickinson
and S. L. Dickinson, both of New Jersey, have been granted
Valuable a dozen patents for mechanical appliances used

inventions. j n player piano machinery. W. B. Purvis of
Philadelphia has accumulated much wealth by his inven
tions of machinery for making paper bags, most of these
having been sold to the Union Paper Bag Company of New
York. A. B. Albert, a native of Louisiana, invented a few
years ago a cotton picking machine. Charles V. Richey
of Washington, D. C., invented and patented several de
vices for registering calls and detecting the unauthorized
use of the telephone. Shelby J. Davidson invented a me
chanical tabulator or adding machine ; Robert A. Pelham, a
pasting machine ; and Andrew P. Hilyer, two hot-air regis
ter attachments. Benjamin F. Jackson of Massachusetts in
vented a heat apparatus, a gas burner, an electrotypers
furnace, a steam boiler, a trolley wheel controller, a tank
signal, and a hydrocarbon burner system. Frank J. Ferrell
of New York obtained about a dozen patents for improve
ments in valves for steam engines. George W. Murray, a
former member of Congress from South Carolina, patented
eight inventions of agricultural implements. Henry
Kreamer of New York made seven different inventions in
steam traps. William Douglass of Arkansas secured six
patents for inventions of harvesting machinery. James

NO. 274,207.

Achievements In Freedom
J. E. MATZELIGER

LASTING MACHINE

PATENTED MAR. 20, 1553

AN ILLUSTRATION SHOWING THE MODELS MADE BY MATZELIGER TO ILLUSTRATB
HIS INVENTIONS IN SHOE MACHINES,

296 The Negro In Our History

Doyle of Pittsburgh devised the automatic serving system
so as to dispense with the use of waiters in cafes.

Fred J. Lowden, known to fame as one of the Fisk
Jubilee Singers, patented in 1893 a fastener for the meeting
Useful rails of sashes, and a key fastener the fol-

appliances. lowing year. J. L. Pickering of Haiti,
James Smith of California, W. G. Madison of Iowa, and
H. E. Hooter of Missouri, have been granted patents for
inventions in airships. No less significant, moreover, was
the patent, in 1897, of Andrew J. Beard, of Alabama,
for an automatic car-coupling device, sold to a New
York car company for m,ore than $50,000. William H.
Johnson of Texas invented a successful device for overcom
ing dead center in motion, one for a compound engine and
another for a water boiler. While keeping a hotel in Bos
ton, Joseph Lee patented three inventions for kneading
dough. Brinay Smart of Tennessee invented a number of
reverse valve gears. J. W. Benton of Kentucky invented a
derrick for hoisting heavy weights. John T. Parker in
vented screws for tobacco presses with which he established
a thriving business as the Ripley Foundry and Machine
Company of Ripley, Ohio.

The most useful inventor with a career extending into the
twentieth century, however, was Granville T. Woods, who
doubtless surpassed most men in his field in the number and
Granville T. the variety of his devices. .He began in Cin-
Woods. cinnati, Ohio, in 1884, where he obtained his

first patent on a steam boiler furnace. Then came an
amusement machine apparatus in 1880, an incubator in
1900, and electrical air brakes in 1902, 1903, and 1905. He
then directed his attention to telegraphy, producing several
patents for transmitting messages between moving trains,
and also a number of transmitters. He thereafter invented
fifteen appliances having to do with electrical railways and
a number of others for electrical control and distribution.

Achievements In Freedom

297

To further his interests he organized the Woods Electrical
Company, which took over by assignment all of his early
patents. As in the course of time, however, he found a
larger market for his devices with the more prosperous
corporations in the United States, the records of the patent
office show the assignment of a large number of his inven
tions to the General Electric Company of New York, the
Westinghouse Air Brake Com
pany of Pennsylvania, the Amer
ican Bell Telephone Company of
Boston, and the American En
gineering Company of New York.
During this period of his larger
usefulness he had the cooperation
of his brother, Lyates Woods, who
himself invented a number of
such appliances of considerable
commercial value.

Another inventor of conse
quence was Elijah J. McCoy. He was unique in that
he was the first man to direct attention to the need for
facilitating 1 the lubrication of machinery. Elijah J.
His first invention was patented in 1872 as McCoy.
a lubricating cup. From that day his fame as an inven
tor of this useful appliance went throughout this country
and abroad. In responding to the need for still further
improvements in this work, he patented about fifty dif
ferent inventions having to do with the lubricating of
machinery. His lubricating cup became of general use on
the leading railroads in the United States and abroad and
on the vessels on the high seas. In his work, however, Mr.
McCoy was not restricted to lubricating machinery. He
patented a variety of devices for other purposes, and he was
long active in the production of other mechanical appliances
in demand in the industrial world.

GRANVILLE T. WOODS

298 The Negro In Our History

The achievements of the Negroes in this field become
much worthier of mention when one takes into consideration
the hard problems of the inventor of color. In this country
Difficulties it: nas not Deen a ver y easy matter for white

of the men with ample protection of the law to se-

inventor.

cure to themselves by patents the full enjoy
ment of the fruits of their own labor. The achievements of
Eli Whitney and Robert Fulton are cases in evidence.
Henry A. Bowman, a Negro inventor of Worcester, Mas
sachusetts, therefore, found himself facing the same diffi
culty. After he had established a thriving business on the
basis of his invention of a new method of making flags, he
discovered that a New York firm was outstripping him by
using his invention. As he was unable to hire competent
attorneys to protect his interests, he was soon compelled to
abandon his business. The experience of E. A. Robinson of
Chicago is another case in evidence. He invented a num
ber of devices, such as the casting composite for car wheels,
a trolley wheel, a railway switch and a rail. His patents,
however, were infringed upon by two large corporations,
the American Car and Foundry Company and the Chicago
City Railway Company. To restrain these corporations
from appropriating his property to their use, he instituted
proceedings in the local courts and finally in the Supreme
Court of the United States, but hitherto he has been unable
to have his patent protected.

Exhibiting this same sort of genius ever manifesting itself
despite difficulties, Negroes have shown in other fields
evidences of unusual attainment. In music the world has
The Negro seen the lowly life and higher aspirations of
in music. the Negro in j w and F w Work, Will

Marion Cook, Nathaniel Dett, and Harry Burleigh, fol
lowing in the footsteps of Samuel Coleridge Taylor. In
sculpture the race has been well represented by Meta Vaux
Warrick Fuller, who won fame by her first work in clay

Achievements In Freedom 299

in the Philadelphia School of Industrial Art. She studied
in Paris, where she attracted the attention of the great
sculptor, Rodin. In 1893 she exhibited the highly prized
model of art, The Wretched, her masterpiece. She has since
added some other works, The Dancing Girl, The Wrestlers,
and Carrying the Dead Body. In the same field has also
appeared Mrs. May Howard Jackson, whose works have
elicited honorable mention in many circles. E. M. Bannis
ter, William A. Harper, and William E. Scott have at
tracted considerable attention by their paintings.

The most distinguished Negro in the field of art, how
ever, is Henry 0. Tanner, who, with the white artist, Sar
gent, represents the best America has produced in painting.
He had little encouragement in this field, but Henry O.
early attracted attention by The Bagpipe Tanner.
Lesson, portraying a workman sitting on a wheelbarrow ob
serving the efforts of a youth on a musical instrument.
Lacking in this country the atmosphere conducive to the
development of the best in man, Mr. Tanner went to the
city of Paris in 1891 where, under the instruction of Jean
Paul Laurens and Benjamin Constant, he mastered the
principles of art. There, in contact with men in his own
sphere, he has developed into one of the greatest artists of
his time.

His first painting of value was exhibited in 1894. The
following year he completed The Young Sabot Maker, but
it was not until 1896 that with the encouragement given
him by the great artist Gerome Mr. Tanner won recog
nition as a painter. In 1897, however, his Raising of
Lazarus attracted so much attention far and wide that
thereafter there was little doubt in the circles of art as to
the greatness of this man. This picture was awarded the
gold medal by the French government and placed in the
Louvre. In 1898 he presented to the public The Annun
ciation at the Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, elicit-

300 The Negro In Our History

ing unusually favorable comment. His Judas, presented to
the public in 1899, was bought by the Carnegie Institute of
Pittsburgh. That same year Nicodemus, awarded the Wal
ter Lippincott prize of $300, was purchased by the Pennsyl
vania Academy of Fine Arts. For his Daniel in the Lion s
Den he was awarded second class medals at the Universal
Exposition in Paris in 1900, at the Pan-American Expo
sition in 1901, and at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904.
In 1906 his The Disciples at Emmaus was awarded the

H. 0. TANNER S Christ and Nicodemus

second gold medal and purchased by the French Govern
ment. That same year his The Disciples at the Tomb was
declared the best painting at the annual exhibition of art
in Chicago and was awarded the N. W. Harris prize of
$300. In 1908 appeared The Wise and Foolish Virgins,
which was characterized as a masterpiece of a sincere artist.
As a painter, Mr. Tanner has directed his attention
largely to religious and lowly life, as evidenced by the names
of his paintings. He no doubt owes this attitude to the
fact that he is the son of a bishop of the African Methodist

Achievements In Freedom 301

Episcopal Church, and early in life was encouraged to
apply himself to theology. As an artist his productions
have a reverent atmosphere, and his pictures are clean-cut
and luminous. In his paintings there are subtle power,
purity of line, and thorough charm, with sentiment pre
vailing over technique. While the shades are luminous, the
coloring is neither heavy nor muddy. "He always brings
out of all his work," says one, "an admirable dramatic
sentiment given full value and fully expressed."

In the field of literature the Negroes are sometimes con
sidered as beginners, but much progress in this field is evi
dent. Kelly Miller, W. E. B. DuBois arid William Pickens
have done well in controversial literature. In literature.
George W. Williams, John W. Cromwell and Booker T.
Washington have made contributions to history. Following
in the wake of Jupiter Hammon, Phyllis Wheatley and
Frances E. W. Harper, writers of interesting verse, Paul
Laurence Dunbar came before the public in the early nine
ties as a man endowed with the unusual gift of interpreting
the lowly life of the Negro. As an elevator boy in a hotel,
writing a few lines in dialect, he himself did not realize
his poetic genius. Succeeding, however, in having a few of
these published in daily papers and magazines, he attracted
attention. It was not long before William Dean Howells, a
contemporary, became interested in his works and pro
claimed him to the world as a poet worthy of the consider
ation given Whittier, Lowell and Longfellow. The rise
Dunbar had fortunately reached that unusual of Dwrt 3 *-
stage in the development of a belated people of having his
education react upon his environment. He saw the Ne
gro as he is, saw something beneath the surface of his mere
brogue, in fact, saw a philosophy for which the world
wanted an interpretation. This interpretation came in his
first book, Oak and Ivy, and was still better exhibited in
his second work, Majors and Minors, appearing in 1895.

302

The Negro In Our History

Very soon then we hear of him such comments as that com
ing from Richard Watson Gilder, saying that Dunbar is the
first black man to feel the life of the Negro esthetically and
to express it lyrically.

Dunbar made an attempt at novel writing, as appears in
his The Uncalled. This was a character study upon which

fortunately his reputation
as a literary man does not
rest, for it does not come
up to the standard of his
verse. Unstinted praise
awaited him upon his
publication of Lyrics of
Lowly Life, Folks from
Dixie, Lyrics of the Hearth-
side, Poems of Cabin and
Field, The Strength of
Gideon, The Love of Lan-
dry, The Fanatics, The
Sport of the Gods, Lyrics
of Love and Laughter
and Candle Lighting Time.
Some of the popular poems
in this collection which are
worthy of special mention
are When Malindy Sings,
When the Co n Pone s Hot, The Party and The Poet and
his Song.

His success as a literary man was due to his originality.
While there had appeared from time to time scores of
whites and blacks who had undertaken to write verse in
Negro dialect, Dunbar was the first to put into it such
thought and make of it such a portraiture of the feeling
and the aspirations of the Negroes as to give his work the
stamp of originality. While he was always humorous, his

PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR

Achievements In Freedom 303

poetry showed deep pathos and sympathy. With no- prob
lems to solve and no peculiar type of character to represent
he went into the Negro life, saw it as it was, and emerged
portraying it with living characters exhibiting the elas
ticity, spirit, tone, and naturalness in the life about him.

In life he was respected and known throughout this coun
try and abroad. In 1897 he visited England, where be
cause of his fame as a poet he was received with marked
honor. Upon returning to this country his literary en
gagements became such that he could devote himself en
tirely to work in his field. His health early began to de
cline, however, and he died at the age of thirty-four at his
home in Dayton, Ohio, which, thanks to the interest of
sympathetic persons of both races, is now maintained as a
monument to remain as a museum in honor of the poet,
Paul Laurence Dunbar.

Since the days of Dunbar a number of other Negro
writers of prominence have considerably interested the pub
lic. Among these should be mentioned Angelina W.
Grimke, a woman of poetic insight ; Benjamin Other writers.
Brawley, an author of many interests ; Jessie R. Fauset, a
writer of varying purpose; Georgia Douglas Johnson,
whose interesting poems have recently appeared as The
Heart of a Woman; Leslie Pinkney Hill, distinguished by
his Wings of Oppression; Joseph Seaman Cotter, known to
the public through his poems contributed to various maga
zines and his collection entitled the Band of Gideon; and
James Weldon Johnson, whose invaluable works are col
lected in the volume, Fifty Years and Other Poems. These
authors are at their best in writing poems which have no
bearing on the. life of the Negro. In this field they have ex
hibited evidences of the thought, feeling and imagination
found in the best literature. In taking up Negro life, how
ever, they have not reached the standard of Dunbar. Their
difficulty has been that because of sufferings from social

304 The Negro In Our History

proscription in the white men s world they have faced their
task with a problem to solve and, unlike Paul Laurence
Dunbar, who went into life and merely portrayed what he
saw, they prejudice their readers against them by a pre
mature introduction to an unpleasant atmosphere.

The most remarkable writer of Negro blood since Dunbar
is William Stanley Braithwaite, who as a writer is not a
Negro. Although realizing the fact that the race has ob-
Braithwaite. stacles to surmount, that it is in a great strug
gle, and that the battle is being hard fought, Mr. Braith
waite has by his literary production and criticism won much
consideration for the Negroes, not by singing of their woes,
but by demonstrating that the Negro intellect is capable of
the same achievements as that of the whites. In his poems,
his annual publication, the Anthology of Magazine Verse,
and his numerous literary criticisms appearing from
time to time in the leading publications of this country, Mr.
Braithwaite, although a man of African blood, is accepted
as one of the foremost literary critics of our day.

CHAPTER XIX

THE NEGRO IN THE WORLD WAR

WHILE the Negroes were suffering from persecution in
the South and economic proscription in the North, the
world plunged almost unexpectedly into a universal strug
gle which materially affected the interests of A factor
the blacks. 1 The heir-presumptive to the in the war.
Austro-Hungarian throne was shot at Serajevo June 28,
1914. Blaming the Serbs for this crime, the Austrian gov
ernment sent Serbia an ultimatum demanding that the
offenders be brought to trial by a tribunal in which Austria
should be represented. Serbia refused to yield to these
demands and was supported by Russia in this position ; but
Germany upheld Austria, feeling that if such an act passed
without punishment, it would soon be impossible for the
crowned heads of Europe to maintain their empires. Eng
land, France, and Italy recommended that the matter be
adjusted by arbitration, but Germany, contending that
mobilization of the Russian army was in reality a decla
ration of war against her, declared war on Russia the first
of August and on France two days later. England sym
pathized with France, to which she was attached by various
ties, and accordingly entered the war against Germany.

iThe history of the World War has not yet been written. There
have appeared several subscription volumes for the purpose of making
money rather than to publish the whole truth, and they have been
extensively sold. As to the role of the Negro in this drama there is
but scant reliable information. Emmett J. Scott has written a
popular account of the achievements of the Negroes in this struggle,
but it is hoped that this may soon be foHowed by a scientific treatise.

305

806 The Negro In Our History

"When Germany showed such disregard of her treaty obli
gations as to invade Belgium, a neutral country, she lost
the sympathy of most European and American countries,
many of which finally joined the allies to curb the power of
the Hohenzollerns.

As the United States, although deeply sympathizing
with the struggle against autocracy, did not deem the inter
ference with our commerce and even the sinking of our
Prosperity. neutral ships sufficient cause for intervention,
this country entered at once upon an unprecedented period
of commercial prosperity in becoming the source of supply
for almost everything needed by the numerous nations in
volved in the war. Industries, formerly in a struggling
state, received an unusual impetus ; new enterprises sprang
up in a day ; and persons formerly living merely above want
multiplied their wealth by fortunate investments. The ag
gressions of Germany upon our commerce resulting in the
death of our citizens upon ships destroyed on the high seas
became so numerous, however, that thousands of Americans,
led by Theodore Roosevelt, insisted upon a declaration of
war against Germany. But our trade with the Allies was so
lucrative that it was difficult to convert a majority of the
people of the country to the belief that it would be better
for us to disturb the era of commercial prosperity to go
to war for the mere principle that Germany wronged us in
trying to break up our lawful commerce with the belliger
ents in Europe.

This continued prosperity brought on a new day for the
laboring man and consequently a period of economic ad
vancement for the Negro. The million of immigrants an-
A new day nually reaching our shores were cut off from
for labor. this country by the war. Labor in the United

States then soon proved to be inadequate to supply the
demand. Wages in the industrial centers of the North and
West were increased to attract white men, but a sufficient

The Negro In the World War 307

number of them could not be found in this country, so
great was the demand in the industrial centers, the plants,
and cantonments, making preparations for war. Departing
then from the time-honored custom in the North, the needy
employers began to bid for Negro labor of the South. All
Negroes who came seeking unskilled labor Negro labor
were hired, and occasionally skilled workmen in demand,
of color found employment. But the Negroes of the South
were not merely invited; they were sent for. Those who
first ventured North to find employment wrote back for
their friends, and when this method failed to supply the
demand, labor agents were sent for that purpose wherever
they could find men ; but the Mississippi Valley, for several
reasons, proved to be the most favorable section. Through
this valley conditions had at times become unsettled on
account of the periodical inundations of the Mississippi, and
the Negroes in those lowlands, usually the greatest sufferers,
welcomed the opportunity to go to a safer and more con
genial part. Throughout the Gulf States, however, where
the boll weevil had for years made depredations on the cot
ton crop, Negroes were also inclined to move out to a section
in which their economic progress might be assured. In
short, the call from the North came at the time the Negroes
were ready and willing to go.

It may seem a little strange that Negroes who had for
years complained of intolerable persecution in the South
never made any strenuous efforts to leave until offered
economic advantages in the North. Such a Economic
course was inevitable, however, for, intoler- advantages
able as conditions were in the South, the ort

Negro had to live somewhere and he could not do so in
the North because of the monopoly of labor maintained
there by the hostile trades unions. In this more recent move
ment, instead of making his way to the North where among
unfriendly people he would have to eke out an existence as

The Negro In Our History

PERCENTAGE NEGRO IN THE POPULATION

t 1 Less than 1 per cent,
i to 5 per cent.
6 to 10 per cent.
10 to 15 per cent,
15 to 25 per cent.
25 to 35 per cent.
35 to 50 per cent.
60 per cent and over.

(1C)
By permission of the Tnited States Bureau of the Census

The Negro In the World War

OF THE UNITED STATES, BY COUNTIES 1910,

310 The Negro In Our History

a menial, he was invited to come to these industrial centers
where friends and employment awaited him. History,
moreover, does not show that large numbers of persons have
migrated because of persecution. If not assured of an
equally good economic foundation elsewhere, the majority
of those persecuted have decided in the final analysis to bear
the ills they have rather than fly to those they know not of.

The oppression of the Negroes in the South, however, was
also a cause of the exodus, though not the dominant one.
When men from afar came to tell the Negroes of a way of
Oppression, escape to a peaceful and law-abiding land,
a cause. ^ e y were rece i ve d as spies returning from the

inspection of a promised land. While the many were moved
by the chance to amass fabulous sums, they all sighed with
relief at the thought that they could at last go to a country
where they could educate their children, protect their fami
lies from insult, and enjoy the fruits of their labor. They
had pleasant recollections of the days when Negroes wielded
political power, and the dream of again coming into their
own was a strong motive impelling many to leave the South.
Negro leaders primarily interested in securing to the race
the full enjoyment of its rights rejoiced that they were
going North, while the conservative, sycophantic toady
classes advised them to remain in the service of their em
ployers in the South.

In the North, however, although the Negroes readily
entered upon the enjoyment of many privileges denied them
in the South, they have here and there been brought into
Troubles in competition with the radical white laboring
the North. element which at Chester, Youngstown, and
East St. Louis precipitated riots in trying to get rid of
Negro labor. At East St. Louis in July, 1917, Negroes
long harassed by this element finally became the object
of onslaughts by the whites. They were overcome by the

The Negro In the World War 311

mob, which was supported by the silence of the militia sent
to maintain order and even outwardly by certain of its
members, who permitted individuals to take their guns to
drive the Negroes into their congested quarters, where they
massacred and burned 125. The administration of justice
in this northern State seemed no better than that in the
South; for although the whites were the aggressors in the

A RESULT OF THE MIGRATION. A Negro teacher with pupils
of both races.

riot, the court inflicted more punishment on the Negroes
than on the whites. One Negro was sentenced to life im
prisonment but later acquitted. Ten other Negroes were
to serve fourteen years, whereas four white men were im
prisoned for from fourteen to fifteen years, five for five
years, eleven for less than one year; eighteen were fined,
and seventeen acquitted.
These outbreaks, of course, justified the predictions of

312 The Negro In Our History

southern employers that the Negroes would not be welcomed
in the North and strengthened certain seriously thinking
Negroes in believing that the prosperity of the Negro in
Differing the industrial centers was merely temporary

reflections. and that the trades unions, especially when
strengthened by the immigrants from Europe after the war,
would eventually force the Negroes out of employment after
having severed the ties which bound them to the South.
Other Negroes had little fear from the immigrants. Be
lieving that the depopulation of Europe during this war
will render a large immigration from that quarter an im
possibility, others urged the Negroes to continue their com
ing North in spite of all conflicts and difficulties, seeing
that they are now migrating in such numbers as to be
materially helpful and to wield economic and political
power.

Knowing that the South was losing the only sort of labor
it can use in its exploiting system, employers of that section
considered the exodus a calamity. They, therefore, took
The Exodus steps to impede and if possible to stop the
a calamity. movement. Moral suasion was first used. Ne
groes were told of the horrors of the North and especially
of the hard winters. When letters to Negroes from friends
who were easily braving these hardships reached the South,
another sort of argument was necessary. Labor agents were
first handicapped by requiring of them a high license ; they
were then by special ordinances prohibited from inducing
Negroes to leave, and finally driven out of the South. As
the mail proved to be almost as good an avenue for reaching
the prospective migrant, those seeking to prevent the exodus
found their efforts still futile. Negroes going North were
then driven from the railway stations, taken from trains,
and imprisoned on false charges to delay or prevent their
departure from southern cities, but the Negroes continued to
go North. The movement was not checked until after the

The Negro In the World War 313

intervention of the United States in the war, when the ad
ministration spent so much money in the South while
hurrying the preparation for war that wages so rapidly in
creased and work became so general that it was unneces
sary for the Negroes to go North to improve their economic
condition.

The final intervention of the United States in the World
War marked another epoch in the history of the Negro in
this country. In the first place few people in America
were anxious to go to the front, although a The interven-
majority of our citizens felt that the Hohen- tion of the
zollern autocracy should be destroyed. Men
had to be converted to the war. German spies had long
been abroad in this country, and millions, because of their
German descent, felt bitter toward the United States for
going to the aid of the Allies. There was then much appre
hension as to the attitude of the Negroes, as they through
out this country had been treated as pariahs unprepared
for the full measure of that democracy for which Woodrow
Wilson desired to fight in Europe that the world might be a
decent place to live in. As a matter of fact German spies
did approach Negroes, and a few of them ex- German spies,
pressed themselves as being in sympathy with Germany.
A still larger number boldly advocated making this coun
try a decent place for the Negroes before taking Negroes
to Europe to secure to the oppressed there privileges which
the blacks could not enjoy at home.

In thinking that the Negro would prove disloyal to the
United States, however, the white man showed that he did
not understand the race. The Negroes of this country
love their native soil and will readily die, if The Negroes
necessary, to defend it. However, they do lo y al -
not love the reactionaries, who during the last fifty years
of their control of the Federal Government have failed to
live up to their oath to carry out the Constitution of the

314 The Negro In Our History

United States, which guarantees to the Negroes the enjoy
ment of every right, immunity, and privilege, found in
the most liberal democracy on earth. The Negroes will con
tinue to be loyal to their country, with the hope that
the degraded elements in control may become sufficiently
civilized to abandon medieval methods for government
based on liberty, equality, and fraternity. As the prin
ciple is worth fighting for, and as the struggle for it must
not be hopeless in view of the interest occasionally shown in
the man far down, the Negroes would not permit their
dispositions to sour; they forgot their wrongs and offered
themselves to fight the battles of humanity.

The reactionary class, however, although ready to brand
the Negroes with suspicion and to prosecute them for dis-
Eeactionarles lo y alt y&gt; urged the government not to recruit
against Negroes. The Negroes, according to the

whites of this attitude, constituted an inferior
class which should not participate in the struggle of white
men. Many Southerners, moreover, who, in their faulty
judgment, have solved forever the race problem by depriv
ing Negroes of social, political and civic rights, considered
it alarming to train them in the arts of war ; for men who
have waded through blood to victory are not easily intimi
dated into subjection to the insult and outrage legalized
in the backward districts. The efforts of the reactionaries
were futile, however, and the Negroes were drawn into the
army in much larger numbers than they should have been.
Although constituting one-tenth of the population, the
Negro element furnished thirteen per cent of the soldiers
called to the colors. At the same time the European na
tions had not sufficient prejudice to hesitate as did
Americans in deciding the question of employing Negro
troops. There were 280,000 Senegales who had helped to
repel the Germans on the Ourcq and the Marne, 30,000
Congolese, and about 20,000 from the British West Indies,

The Negro In the World War 315

who also did their part in saving France from autocracy.

When the American Negro was finally decided upon as
desirable for the army, the same reactionaries in control of
the Federal Government endeavored to restrict them in the
service. Negroes had to register under Restriction
methods of discrimination, that they might in the service
not be confused with the whites. No pro
vision in the beginning was made for training Negro
officers, and southern congressmen urged that all Negroes
be confined to stevedore regiments to labor under white
commissioned and non-commissioned officers. Fearing that
this would be done, Negro leaders protested, charging the
War Department with conscripting Negroes for labor.
The Secretary of War, of course, assured them that nothing
of the sort was planned when it was actually being done.

To the Service of Supply regiments most Negro draftees
were sent. Not less than three-fourths of the 200,000 of
the Negroes sent to France were reduced to laborers. It re
sulted that one-tenth of the population of the nation was
compelled by a country fighting for democracy abroad, to
supply three-fourths of the labor of the ex- i n the Service
peditionary force. They were commanded, of Su PP!y-
moreover, largely by illiterate, prejudiced white men, and
finally all but enslaved in the Service of Supply divisions
abroad by unsympathetic whites, the majority of whom
were southerners on the order of slave drivers. These
draftees were subjected to unnecessary rigor ; they were as
signed unusually hard tasks; they were given inadequate
recreation, while white soldiers in the same camp were ex
empted from these hardships. Abusive language, kicks
and cuffs and injurious blows were the order of the day in
dealing with the Negroes impressed into this branch of
service. As there were in these camps no Negroes in touch
with the outside world except the Young Men s Christian
Association secretaries, and the slave-driving officers sue-

316 The Negro In Our History

ceeded in displacing some of these, there was no one to
whom these Negroes could take a complaint. The Bureau
of Negro Economics directed by George E. Haynes in
the Department of Labor was very busy with various plans
during the war, but did not seem to improve the life of the
Negro laborer in the army or in civil life ; and the services
of Emmett J. Scott as Special Assistant to the Secretary of
War had little bearing on the situation.

These Negroes, however, accepted their lot as good sol
diers. Loyal to the cause of humanity, they without mur
mur faced humiliation, hardships, and insult. But the uni-
Loyal in versal opinion is that the Negro stevedore, in

spite of dis- spite of all he had to endure, was the best la-
crimination

borer in the war and that without this efficient

service the Allies could not have been supplied with food and
munitions rapidly enough to save them from exhaustion.
These men were stationed at the English and French ports
and at depots like that at Givres, where millions of Amer
ican wealth handled by 25,000 men passed through enor
mous masses of warehouses with 140 miles of interior rail
road lines for the handling of freight. They unloaded the
transports, prepared the vehicles to convey the supplies
to the interior, and built depots for storing them. When
the way to the expeditionary force lay through woods and
over hills, the labor battalions built roads from the port of
entry to the front. They, moreover, buried the dead, sal
vaged war material, and detonated explosives scattered over
France by the enemy.

The Negroes were diplomatically told that they would be
drafted to fight in the ranks as other men. The War De
partment, however, was not at first sure that the army
could make use of the Negro as an officer. Seeing what
little hope this situation offered the thousands of well-edu
cated Negroes who in the army would be serving under in
ferior whites, the students and a few members of the faculty

The Negro In the World War 317

of Howard University instituted a nation-wide campaign
for a training camp in which Negroes of certain educa
tional qualifications should have the opportunity to qualify
as officers in the national service. As this The demand
movement soon had the support of all Negro for Negro
schools of consequence and was promoted, too,
by many white and black citizens, the War Department
was forced to take the matter under advisement. After
some hesitation the ad
ministration decided to es
tablish at Fort Des Moines
a camp for the training
of colored officers. There
was, however, much ap
prehension as to how the
experiment would work
out and still more as to
whether the United States
Government would actu
ally commission a large
number 1 of Negro officers.
Six hundred and seventy-
five of the twelve hundred COL. CHARLES YOUSG, the highest

ranking Negro graduate of West

Point

accepted at the camp, how
ever, were commissioned
in October, 1917, and the country saw going hither and
thither the largest number of Negroes who had ever worn
the stripes and bars.

The Negro officer, however, had already been proscribed.
The administration had granted the Negro this recogni
tion to secure the support of the Negroes for the war, but
the Negro officer was not desired in the army, proscription
and the personnel in control did not intend
to keep him there. Colonel Young was soon
retired because of high blood pressure from which he did

318 The Negro In Our History

not dreadfully suffer until in a tinxe of rapid promo
tion in the army it seemed likely that he would advance
high enough to command too many white men and disturb
race superiority in the United States. Then followed in the
cantonments the campaign to discredit and force the Negro
officer out of the army. Through the Secretary of War,
Emmett J. Scott was able to counteract some of these efforts
made within the limits of the United States.

This attack, however, finally centered on the Negro
officer in action in France, as it was a little difficult to do
here some things which could be effected abroad before the
Fighting the War Department could intervene. In the
Negro officer 92nd Division, in which most of the Negroes
n ranee. trained at Fort Des Moines served, the Negro
officer suffered unusually. The division was placed in
command of an incompetent man, General Ballou, who, sur
rounded by officials prejudiced against the Negro, became
unduly influenced thereby and shaped his policy accord
ingly. He showed very little judgment in trying to force
his division to accept race discrimination, and still less in
criticizing Negro officers in the presence of their subordi
nates, saying that they were failures before they had been
tested. Wherever Negro officers were stationed, moreover,
a systematic effort was made to get rid of them by bring
ing them as early as possible before efficiency boards to find
excuses for their retirement or assignment to labor bat
talions. In regiments where there were all Negroes, as in
the New York Fifteenth, from which Colonel Hayward, the
white commander, secured the transfer of all Negro officers
after retiring a few for inefficiency, the same end was
reached. The staff could then contend that as additional of
ficers thereafter were necessary and other Negro officers
could not be supplied, the regiment would have to take
on white officers altogether, since officers of the two races

The Negro In the World War

320 The Negro In Our History

could not serve together. Many superior officers openly
asked that white officers be sent to their regiments regard
less of the question of efficiency.

To carry out this purpose grave complaints were filed
against the Negro officers. They were often charged with
cowardice, although the Negro soldier was by the same man
Methods used, praised for his bravery. Such a charge was
preferred against four officers of the 368th Regiment who,
having received the wrong orders and finding themselves
entangled in barb wire while under the fire of the enemy s
guns, retreated. As a matter of fact, these troops had not
been prepared for this attack. They were without maps,
without hand grenades, and without adequate ammunition.
Major Elser, a white officer supposed to be leading them,
was nowhere to be found during the engagement. Two of
the Negro Captains, according to Ralph W. Tyler, a war
correspondent, after they had gone over the top and had
run into a nest of machine guns, turned back and asked for
support and got the third battalion. But they could not
get into touch with their Major, who, immediately after the
engagement became serious, had retired to the rear some
where, making it impossible for the captain to connect with
him to secure orders. This Major, however, because of
the failure of the engagement under such circumstances,
charged the Negro officers with cowardice and inefficiency.
As a reward for his cowardice, however, he was a few days
thereafter raised to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and
given command of a Negro regiment. An investigation by
the Secretary of War showed that these officers were not to
be blamed and he exonerated them, taking occasion to laud
these and other Negro soldiers for their valor and patri
otism.

In keeping with the policy of eliminating Negro officers,
from the army, Colonel Allan J. Greer addressed a letter
for this purpose to Senator K. D. McKellar, in violation of

The Negro In the World War 321

a law which, in a country believing in justice, would sub
ject him to court martial. Pointing out the so-called weak
ness in the Negro officer he said: "Now that a reorgani
zation of the army is in prospect, and as all A step be-
officers of the temporary forces have been y nd Bounds.
asked if they desire to remain in the regular army, I
think I ought to bring a matter to your attention that
is of vital importance, not only from a military point of
view but from that which all Southerners have. I refer
to the question of Negro officers and Negro troops.

"The record of the division," said he, "is one which
will probably never be given full publicity, but the bare
facts are about as follows: We came to France in June,
we were given seven weeks in the training area instead of
the four weeks in training area as usually allotted, then
went to a quiet sector of the front. From there we went
to Argonne, and in the offensive starting there on Septem
ber 26, had one regiment in the line, attached to the 38th
French Corps. They failed there in all their missions,
laid down and sneaked to the rear, until they were with
drawn. Thirty of the officers of this regiment alone were
reported either for cowardice or failure to prevent their
men from retreating, and this against very little opposi
tion. The French and our white field officers did all that
could possibly have been done ; but the troops were impos
sible. One of our Majors commanding a battalion said,
* The men are rank cowards ; there is no other word for it. "

While these white officers of superior rank were per
sistently trying to weed out the Negro officers on the
grounds of their inefficiency, the French, who were fortu
nately brigaded with some of the troops com- Praised by
manded by them, had nothing but words of the French,
praise for their gallant leadership. Among the French
officers of consequence who thus complimented them were
Colonel Tupes and General Goybet. In fact, the French

322 The Negro In Our History

officers, easily observing that the trouble with the Negro
officer and his American superior was merely a question of
color, often interfered to save many a Negro officer from
humiliation and from dishonorable discharge from the
army. That there was no truth in the reports as to the
general inefficiency of the Negro officer is evidenced by the
fact that the 370th (the 8th Illinois), which was officered
throughout by Negroes, rendered such gallant service that
it received more citations and croix de guerre than any
other American regiment in France. And many wondered
how it could be possible for a Negro to be such a good
soldier and have no possibility for leadership.

It is true that some Negro officers were inefficient; and
so were many whites, thousands of whom could not stand
the ordeal. It is true also that it does not make for the
The criticism morale of the army to criticize, abuse and
unjust. humiliate an officer in the presence of his men.

If the white officers could not by army regulations be forced
to respect the Negro officers, how could the Negro soldiers
be expected to do so? Yet it is not true that the Negro
soldiers in France did not respect and follow their Negro
officers. Unusually proud of the honor conferred upon
men of their race, they rather treated them with every
mark of respect. The Negro officers were not lowered in
the estimation of the Negro soldiers by the whiff and scorn
of the white officers higher in the ranks, for the same dart
of prejudice hurled at the Negro officer was also directed
against Negro soldiers. They were all in common to be
socially proscribed in France by Americans while fighting
to make the world safe for democracy.

A few cases in evidence will be interesting. Certain
colored troops were ordered to sail on the battleship
Virginia, but after going aboard, the officer in charge had
Insult. these troops removed on the ground that no

colored troops had ever traveled on board a United States

The Negro In the World War 323

battleship. Where under ordinary circumstances it would
have been sometimes necessary for officers of both races to
eat together, special arrangements were made so as to have
the whites report to certain quarters while the blacks went
to another, the blacks having in most of these cases inferior
accommodations. Planning for a reception of General
Pershing at one of the forwarding camps, General Logan
ordered that all troops except Negroes should be under
arms. Negro troops not at work were to be in their quar
ters or in their tents.

Every effort was made to separate the Negro soldiers
from the French people. General Ervin, desiring to re
duce the Negro soldier to the status of undesirables, issued
among other regulations in his order Num- Prejudice in
her 40 a proclamation that Negroes should not the arm y-
associate with French women. The order, of course, was
not obeyed, but an effort was made to enforce it even in
the case of Negro officers. Some Negro officers who were in
school at Vannes accepted the invitation to attend certain
entertainments given for charity as Franco-American
dances requiring an admission fee. Upon hearing of this,
General Horn prohibited their attendance by ordering that
no officer of the 167th Brigade should be permitted to at
tend a dance where a fee was charged,- although the white
officers at this same school, but belonging to other brigades,
could attend.

To extend systematically the operation of race prejudice
throughout France the Americans had issued, August 7,
1918, through a French mission from General Pershing s
headquarters certain Secret Information con- A bold
cerning Black American Troops. The Amer- slander,
icans proclaimed that it was important for French officers
in command of black Americans to have an idea as to the
status of the race in the United States. The Negroes were
branded as a menace of degeneracy which could be escaped

324

The Negro In Our History

only by an impassable gulf established between the two
races, and especially so because of the tendency of the
blacks to commit the loathsome crime of assault, as they
said the Negroes had already been doing in France. The
French were, therefore, cautioned not to treat the Negroes

with familiarity and in
dulgence, which are mat
ters of grievous concern
to Americans and an af
front to their national
policy. The Americans,
it continued, were afraid
that the blacks might
thereby be inspired with
undesirable aspirations.
It w a s carefully ex
plained that although
the black man is a citi
zen of the United States
he is regarded by the
whites as an inferior
with whom relations of
MAJOR JOEL E. SPINGABN, an enemy hn4inPQQ and Q P r v i p p
of prejudice in the army

only are possible; that

the black is noted for his want of intelligence, lack of dis
cretion, and lack of civic and professional conscience. The
French Army then was advised to prevent intimacy be
tween French officers and black officers, not to eat with
them nor shake hands nor seek to talk or meet with them
outside of the requirements of military service. They were
asked also not to commend too highly the black American
troops in the presence of white Americans. Although it
was all right to recognize the good qualities and service
of black Americans, it should be done in moderate terms
strictly in keeping with the truth. The French were urged

The Negro In the World War 325

also to restrain the native cantonment population from
spoiling the Negroes, as white Americans become greatly
incensed at any deep expression of intimacy between white
women and black men.

From accessible evidence it is clear that if some of the
American soldiers had struggled as hard to defeat the Ger
mans as they did to implant race prejudice in France, the
army would have been much nearer the Rhine when the arm
istice was signed. They failed, however, to bring the French
around to their way of seeing liberty, and the Negroes, in
appreciation for the democracy of France as they saw it and
felt it, willingly sacrificed their lives to save the beautifully
humane people. Whether in Champagne, in the Argonne
Forest or at Metz, it was the history of the Negro repeating
itself unflinching stand before the brutal enemy, eager
ness to engage in the conflict, and noble daring endurance
in the heat of the battle. Many a white The Negro as
soldier, many a while officer, returned with a fighter,
the testimony that they were braver than any white man
that ever lived. They fought the enemy from behind and
in the front and still came out the victor. But they were
not merely victors. A score of them, like Roberts and
Johnson of the New York Fifteenth, returned as heroes
decorated by France for their bravery in action and their
glorious triumph over Germans by whom they were greatly
outnumbered.

Thinking that the record of the Negro in France might
be taken as a reason for enlarging his measure of democ
racy for which he fought, the Negro-hating element in the
army, navy, and civilian life organized to The welcome
prevent this even before the close of the war. home -
They tried so to intimidate the Negroes on their return
home that they might remain content to continue in a
position of recognized inferiority. The temper of edi
torials appearing in reactionary newspapers indicated

326

The Negro In Our History

a hostile reception for Negro soldiers returning from the
war, and soon southerners openly declared that such
demands would be firmly met with opposition typical of
the Ku Klux Klan. The returning Negro soldier was,
therefore, for the South, an object of contempt. The
very uniform on a Negro was to the southerner like a
red rag thrown in the face of a bull. Negro soldiers re-

FIRST SEPARATE BATTALION OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, receiving
the Croix de Guerre in France

turning to the South then were beaten, shot down, and
lynched, to terrorize the blacks insisting on better treat
ment for their race. They were not guilty of the viola
tion of any law, but the South considers it advisable to
lynch a few Negroes even when it is known that they are
innocent ; for it generally results in terrorizing others who
might otherwise insist that they be treated as men.

This post-war down-with-the-Negro propaganda spread
from the South into some points in the North, and finally

The Negro In the World War 327

reached Washington, the capital of the nation, itself. Dur
ing the second decade of the century Washington was south-
ernized by an influx of public functionaries and civil service
employes hypocritically parading as promot- Race war in
ers of democracy but inalterably attached to Washington,
the caste of color. On the nineteenth of July, 1919, then,
there appeared in the streets of Washington, a number of
soldiers, sailors and marines, who because of exaggerated re
ports that Negroes had assaulted white women and the rumor
that the wife of a marine had been thus attacked, proceeded
to the southwest section of Washington where they beat sev
eral innocent Negroes. On Sunday, the following day, these
whites on leave from the United States Army and Navy,
supported by civilians, had effected a better organization
to carry out their purposes. They formed at Pennsylvania
Avenue and Seventh Street a mob which took over the city
from the Capitol to the White House. Negroes were pulled
from vehicles and street cars and beaten into unconscious
ness. One was thus taken possession of by the mob and
beaten unmercifully right in front of the White House,
where the President must have heard his groans but has
not as yet uttered a word of protest. Other Negroes were
shot and left to die on the streets.

Going along Pennsylvania Avenue, that night, the author
himself walked into the midst of the mob at the intersec
tion of Eighth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. Before
he realized where he was, there resounded shots all around
him. A large mob swept down Pennsylvania A lynching in
Avenue pursuing a Negro yelling for mercy, Washington,
while another mob at the debouchment of Eighth Street
had caught a Negro whom they conveniently adjusted for
execution and shot while the author, walking briskly as
possible to escape the same fate himself, heard the harassing
groans of the Negro. To be sure that their murderous

328 The Negro In Our History

task was well done a leader yelled to the executioners, "Did
you get him?" The reply was, "Yes, we got him."

The events of the following day, however, showed that this
mob had misjudged the Washington Negroes. They made
extensive preparation for the retaliatory onslaught of the
whites. Weapons were bought, houses were barricaded, and
high powered automobiles were armored for touring the
city late in the night. The augmented police force and the
300 provost guards supplied with rifles and machine guns
did not deter the Negroes. When attacked by the white
mob they easily stood their ground, and took the offensive
when the white mob attempted to invade Negro quarters,
although Thomas Armistead, charging in defense of the
Negroes, fell mortally wounded. Whereas the whites
wounded about 300 Negroes the Sunday night when they
were not expecting the attack, the casualty list of Monday
night showed two Negroes and four whites killed and a
much larger number of whites wounded than Negroes.

A riot almost of the same order broke out in Chicago a few
weeks later. In that city the large migration of Negroes to
its industrial plants and the invasion of desirable residen
tial districts by these newcomers incensed the whites to
the point of precipitating a race war. The Negroes, how
ever, showed by the number of whites killed the same
tendency of the Washington Negro to retaliate when at
tacked by cowards. The Negro helped to save democracy
abroad, but he must fight to enjoy it at home.

CHAPTER XX

THE NEGRO AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

DURING the last quarter of a century the Negro has had
some ground for hope in the forces which bid fair to bring
about a social readjustment involving the leveling of so
ciety if not the elevation of the underman Impending
to rule over his hitherto so-called superiors. 1 crisis -
All elements of our population during this period have
been subject to change by these evolutionary movements at
work among the masses. The laboring man is no longer
a servile employee of serf -like tendencies, but a radical mem
ber of a dissatisfied group, demanding a proper division of
the returns from his labor. He is made more potential in
this position by a recent propaganda to the effect that, so far
as the laboring man is concerned, political affiliation means
little, since all parties have been under the influence of
aristocratic leaders, who, taking advantage of the ignorance
of their constituents, have been able to rule this country
for the benefit of those that have rather than in the inter
est of those that have not. In conformity then with the
cycles of government borne out by history, this country
has passed through the stage of aristocracy to that of the
white man s democracy and bids fair to be revolutionized

i This study may be further extended by reading W. E. B. DuBoia s
The Soul of Black Folk, his The Negro," William Picken s The New
Negro, Kelly Miller s Race Adjustment, Out of the House of Bond
age, and Appeal to Reason. The Atlanta University Studies and
the Occasional Papers of the American Negro Academy are helpful.
The files of The Crisis, The Messenger, The Crusader, The Boston
Guardian, The Chicago Defender and The New York Age should be
consulted.

320

330 The Negro In Our History

in the near future by the rule of the mob represented by
so-called organized labor. In other words, the country has
developed from aristocracy to frontier democracy, from
frontier democracy to progressivism and from progres-
sivism almost to socialism..

This has been all but true even in the South where this
social upheaval has expressed itself politically in the rise
of the poor white man. During the days of slavery the
The rise of South and, to some extent, the whole country,
the poor continued under the domination of aristocratic

slaveholders. The poor whites, driven to the
uplands and the mountains where slavery was unprofitable,
never accumulated sufficient wealth to attain political recog
nition enjoyed by those living near the coast, despite the fact
that there were numerous clashes, urgent debates, charges,
and counter-charges coming from discordant elements among
the mountain whites requiring an equalization of politi
cal power. When, however, after 1850 and especially after
the Civil War there resulted an extension of the franchise,
making it universal free manhood suffrage, the poor whites
did not long delay in realizing the power given them
through the ballot. Under the leadership then of men
Radical like James K. Vardaman, Benjamin Tillman,

leaders. an( j Q j e Blease, these uplanders have come

into their own. Lacking that sympathy for the Negroes
found among the ex-slaveholders, these poor whites have
in getting control of the southern governments, however, ef
fected sufficient changes to deprive the blacks of their civil
and political rights and even of some economic opportuni
ties. Giving so much attention to the perpetuation of
caste, then, the molders of public opinion in the South
have not permitted the radically democratic movements
to invade that section. There it was discovered that
it would be impossible to live up to the principles set forth
without giving the Negroes a larger share of social and

The Negro and Social Justice

331

political privileges. In the North, where a smaller number
of Negroes have been found, there has not been any serious
handicap to such movements. So far as the The situation
Single Taxers, the Socialists, and the Bolshe- ta tlie Nortn.
viki are concerned, the Negro may share at their table the
same blessings vouchsafed to others. The rank and file of

the people, however, have
hesitated to recognize the
Negro. Leaders in the
_North are still trying to
decide how large a share
of social justice, how much
of.-t.hft workl-wide democ
racy, the Negro should en-

The Negro, however, has
been loath to
drift into an
archy. His claim for social
justice is rightly based on
his work as a conservative
and constructive force in
the countrx_Although the
present day encroachment!
on the part of the degraded

Conservatism
of tlie

JAMES WELDON JOHNSON, Secretary

of the National Association for the

Advancement of Colored People

rnany Negroes to take up

arms s _m selMefense^js^in Houston, Washington, and
Chicago, in Elaine, Arkansas, Knoxville, Tennessee, and
Tulsa, Oklahoma, the blacks have not and do not desire to
become radical. Increasing persecution, however, is gradu
ally forcing Negroes on the defensive into the ranks of the
Socialists and Radicals. Negro preachers, editors, and
teachers, who have for years pleaded at the bar of public
opinion for the recognition of the Negro as a man, now find

332 The Negro In Our History

themselves unconsciously allied with the most radical forces
in the United States. This, of course, if not arrested by a
more sympathetic consideration of the Negro s rights, may
increase the ranks of the malcontents to the extent of ef
fecting a general upheaval in this country.

It is well to note that there no longer exists a frontier
with all of its opportunities for free arable land, where
in the midst of so many changes, frontiersmen passed so
rapidly through the various stages of the civilization of the
backwoods, the farm, the town and the city that in a
generation they became thoroughly Americanized. Since
1890 we have been confronted with the aftermath of the
frontier the increase of restlessness, pessimism and revo
lutionary sentiment, aggravated by the presence of un-
Americanized foreigners who, no longer able to go West,
must remain in our large cities to wage war against the
capitalists whom they now consider the source of all their
evils.

Labor and capital now face ea,ch other in the cities in
a restricted area, and each has to combine to protect its
The conflict interests. The combination of capital was
in cities. impossible when land was abundant and in

dividualism was strong. To protect the weak we are now
reduced to a new sort of radicalism which differs from that
of the European Socialists in that while the latter are try
ing to build a democracy out of the remains of monarchial
life, our malcontents are resorting to various political ex
periments to hold on to the ideals of the frontier which
have been shattered by the concentration of the population
in cities. There has followed, therefore, such assimilation
of the black and white people to urban conditions as to
mark an epoch in the making of our civilization, effecting
a revolution not only in industry but in politics, society,
and life itself. The rural society has been destroyed by
commercialism, which has transformed the majority of the

The Negro and Social Justice 333

American people into commercial beings. As more than
half of the people of the United States now live in urban
communities of over 5000 inhabitants, the problems of this
country tomorrow will be the problems of the city. As the
cities are now in control of the most radical elements in

the United States, it is

only a matter of time be
fore the national policy
will be dominated by radi
cal thought, and men dis
posed to hold on to the
best in republican govern
ment should think seri
ously of the danger of
driving by persecution in
to the ranks of this unre
strained element the Ne
groes, who constitute the
most conservative and the
most constructive stock in
America.

With the migration of
a large number of Negroes
to northern cities, how
ever, there have been tend
encies indicating that
wherever Negroes are nu
merous enough to impress themselves upon the community,
disturbing race prejudice develops. We hear, therefore,
of the agitation for separate schools in Race conflict.
Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Columbus, Indianapolis, and Chi
cago. There is also a desire among certain whites, not
necessarily to segregate the Negroes by special ordi
nances to that effect, but by a common understanding to
restrict them to certain parts of the cities where they

MARY WHITE OVIXGTOX, Chairman
of the Board of Directors of the
National Association for the Ad
vancement of Colored People

334 The Negro In Our History

may not come into such close contact with the so-called
superior whites. Eace prejudice in these parts then has
become much more volcanic at times than it is in cer
tain sections of the South, as was evidenced by the recent
riots at Chester, Pennsylvania, Youngstown, Ohio, East
St. Louis, and Chicago. Although it does not appear
that any part of the North has, as in the case of the re
gions like that around Tyler, Texas, developedjnto what
may be properly styled ^mffinal Community, it has shown
possibilities in that direction.

The greatest difficulty of all which the Negroes have had
in the North has been the problem of earning a living.
When the North had few Negroes on its hands it was an
The economic unusually pleasant experience for a Negro
problem. to g to t j iat sec ti on and spend his money

without restriction, enjoying all of the social privileges
usually denied the Negroes in the South. But until re
cently it had always been extremely difficult for the same
persons of color permitted to worship in a white church
or to attend a white school to earn a living among these
same sympathetic persons. It is only since 1916, when the
Negroes went North in such large numbers as to enable
employers to hire enough of them to take over the entire
operation of plants, that they have easily succeeded in
finding employment.

This difficulty has seemed a problem impossible of solu
tion for the reason that back of the protests against the em
ployment of Negroes in higher pursuits have been the trades
Trades unions. unions, wielding such power that in the eco
nomic world their will has been law. Several years ago
the American Federation of Labor declared that its pur
pose was for the organization of all working people with
out regard to class, race, religion, or politics; that many
organizations affiliated with the American Federation of
Labor had within their membership Negro workmen with

The Negro arid Social Justice 335

all other workers of trades ; and that the American Federa
tion of Labor had made and was making every effort with
in its power for the organization of these workmen. This,
however, was largely diplomacy; but a change of attitude
was evident as early as 1910 when the national council of
the American Federation of Labor unanimously passed a
resolution inviting persons
of all races to join, giving
also instructions for mak
ing a special effort to or
ganize Negroes, in 1913.
It required the dearth of
labor during the World
War, however, to give the
Negroes such a basis for
economic freedom in the
North as to secure actual
consideration from the
trades unions. Seeing that
Negroes had to be em
ployed and that they
would be worth so much
more to the trades unions
than the latter would be to
the Negroes, the American
Federation of La,bor feebly expressed a desire for the or
ganization of Negro laborers as units of the various trades
unions.

In carrying out this program, however, the American
Federation of Labor was taking high ground. In fact, it
found itself far in advance of the sentiment favorable to
the Negro in the rank and file of the local trades unions
themselves. There was a tendency nominally The position
to admit the Negroes to the union when it of the unions,
was found that their competition was such as to necessitate

DR. F. J. GRIMKE, a preacher of the
New Democracy

336 The Negro In Our History

their admission, and thereafter, by certain excuses and pe
culiar methods of evasion, to employ white men in prefer
ence to the Negroes, although the latter might be mem
bers of the union. During the migration, however, the
American Federation of Labor had to take another stand.
At the annual meeting of the American Federation in 1916,
therefore, it was reported that the Negroes who were then
being brought North were to fill the places of union men
demanding better conditions and it was, therefore, felt
necessary to take steps to organize these Negroes who were
coming in rather large numbers to be checked by strikes
and riots.

The following year, the American Federation of Labor,
after giving more attention than ever to the situation of
Attention labor conditions among the blacks, found it-
given self somewhat handicapped because of the
Negroes. fact that not Qnlv wag there an ant i pa thy of

the Negro toward the labor unions, but they were not in
formed as to their operations and their benefits. It was,
therefore, urged that a Negro organizer be appointed to
extend the work of these trades unions among them.
Many of the delegates assembled thought it advisable to
suggest that at the peace table closing up the World War
the American people should endeavor to influence the
nations participating in this conference to agree upon a
plan of turning over the continent of Africa or certain
parts thereof to the African race and those descendants of
the same residing in this country.

At the meeting of the American Federation of Labor in
Atlantic City in 1919, there was reached the decision to ad
mit Negroes indiscriminately into the various trades unions,
The American en Jyi n the same privileges as the whites.
Federation of Proclaiming thus so boldly the abolition of
Labor in 1919. race (junction in the labor organizations, the
American Federation of Labor has at least laid the foun-

The Negro and Social Justice 337

dation for the economic advancement of the blacks. This
declaration, however, must be accepted merely as a basis
upon which the Negro may take his stand for the economic
struggle before him. Broad as the decision may seem,
it must, like any other law or constitution, be carried out by
persons who, if not sympathetically disposed, may give this
decision such an interpretation as to make it mean nothing.
Liberal as the American Federation of Labor may now be,
moreover, the Negroes to come into their own, enjoying eco
nomic liberty, must still bring about such changes in the
laws and constitutions of the labor locals as to permit the
carrying out of the purpose of the national body. As the
matter now stands, then, the victory has been won in the na
tional council, but the battle is yet to be waged in the
locals.

A number of Negroes, not content with the efforts for their
economic advancement made from without, have endeavored
to remedy their own evils through agencies either estab
lished by Negroes or by white persons closely cooperating
with them. One of the factors in effecting Efforts
the proper distribution of labor during the among
World War and in securing for them justice Negroes,
in many communities where they would have otherwise
been imposed upon, was the National League on Urban
Conditions among Negroes. This is an organization with
eighteen branches dealing with the Negro laboring, depend
ent, and delinquent classes in the various large cities.
The Negroes have organized also in New York a Negro la
bor union largely intended to find employment for Negroes
rather than to secure an increase in their wages. In the
Southwest, there has been organized the Inter-State Asso
ciation of Negro Trainmen of America, intended to perfect
the union of all unorganized railway employees of color.
During the World War there have been several such or
ganizations following in the wake of this, and recently an

338

The Negro In Our History

effort has been made to effect the organization of a national
body which will be for the Negroes just what the American
Federation of Labor has been for the whites.

The Negroes have sought justice, too, not by trying to
force themselves socially on the whites, but by certain im-
A just provements in the situations in which they

now are. One of their attacks is directed
against the poor railroad accommodations in the separate
cars and stations assigned Negroes in the South. They

complain also of the in
adequate school facilities,
contending that it is poor
logic to insist that the Ne
groes must be denied cer
tain privileges because of
their undeveloped state
and at the same time be
refused those opportuni
ties for improvement nec
essary to make themselves
worthy of those privileges
which they are denied.
They have insisted that
certain recreational facili
ties be given the Negroes
in the interest of their
contentment and health,
which are essential to the
maintenance of that physical strength necessary to effi
cient labor. They have wisely contended also that if the
white man is the superior of the two, the Negro must be
brought into sufficiently close contact with the whites so
as to learn by example. Segregation will tend to keep one
part of a community backward while the other is hopelessly
struggling to go forward.

A. H. GRIMKE, "A Defender of His
People"

The Negro and Social Justice 339

In spite of this, however, the South has spoken out more
boldly than ever for a more radical segregation of the race,
with a view to preventing miscegenation. Southern lead
ers believe that if you permit Negroes to be Radical
elevated to positions of importance, it will be reaction,
only a matter of a few generations before they will be suf
ficiently attractive to white persons to promote the inter
marriage of the races. Inalterably attached to their own
ideal and believing in their superiority as the chosen peo
ple of God in line of succession with the Jews, the whites
have insisted upon all sorts of social and political proscrip
tion, in fact, every measure necessary to discourage the
recrudescence of the miscegenation of the races. There
has been, therefore, among those southerners who have en
deavored to fall in line with the radical democratic and
social movement, a tendency to accept the program so far
as it does not include the Negroes. As a natural conse
quence, then, they have brought around to their way of
thinking a large number of southern men who have gradu
ally gained control of the northern press, idealizing the in
stitutions of the South, pitying that section because of
being handicapped by the presence of the Negro and de
manding for the freedman exemption from unusual cruel
ties and persecution only, while ignoring the clamor for
recognition as a real citizen of the United States.

To justify this position there have come forward a num
ber of writers disguised as scientific investigators to prove
by psychology and ethnology that the Negro is a sort of
inferior being. They disregard the conten- Biased
tion of the world s best scientists that no race investigators,
is essentially inferior to any other race and that differ
ences in civilization have resulted from varying opportuni
ties and environments. Loath to give up this theory of
superiority, however, they have devised various schemes to
make a case for the natural superiority of the white man.

340 The Negro In Our History

Among these methods have been the collection of data in
tended to show that the Negro is naturally a criminal.
Some have made psychological measurements of various
types of humanity with a view to proving that the Negro
is mentally weaker than other peoples. Others are busy
writing history of the countries outside of Africa to prove
that the Negroes in Africa are inferior to races without.

A passing remark as to these methods may be worth
while. In almost all of the investigations as to the crime
of the Negroes the evidence is ex parte. No man should
Unscientific be condemned as a criminal merely on the
conclusions. testimony of his enemies. In the matter of
criminal statistics of the Negro the evidence is always
questionable, for the white man is the sole judge. He
makes the arrest, determines the guilt of the Negro, and
applies the penalty. Just as during the days of slavery
prejudiced masters spoke of the crimes of their slaves
and branded free Negroes as pariahs of society, so now we
hear the same concerning the Negroes. In other words, all
of this evidence is from those persons who, making desire
the father of thought, have issued statements without
evidence to support them. Such so-called statistics of the
whites adversely critical of the Negroes, against whom
they are intensely prejudiced and to whom they have de
nied the rights and privileges of men, are worthless in
seeking the truth.

In making some of the psychological measurements the
experiments have been very interesting. One man found
in a white school a Negro who showed more mental capac-
Measurements ity than any other member of the institu-
usedt tion. To explain this away in keeping with

his theory that the Negro is inferior, he contended that the
Negro far off in the North among the white people by him
self was better selected than the whites. In another case,
in which the purpose of the experiment was to prove that the

The Negro and Social Justice 341

Negro was inferior both to the Indian and white man, it
was discovered that the Negro stood between the Indian
and the white man. Adhering to the contention that the
Negro was still inferior even to the Indian, the biased
writer attributed the Negro s superior mental capacity to
his closer contact with the white man.

Until the students of the white race give the same atten
tion to the study of Africa which they have given to the
study of the history of Europe and Asia, they will be un
prepared to reach any conclusions as to the Tlie
sort of civilization which the Negro race has necessity for
produced and its relative value. The fact
is that the white man is still ignorant as to what has taken
place in Africa. His knowledge is confined largely to the
countries on the border and the reports of sporadic explora
tions into the interior. Because the whites of modern
times succeeded in finding in Africa slaves for exploita
tion at the time when the country was torn to pieces by
wars of migrating hordes, they have concluded that these
weak captives in war, whom they enslaved and debased,
must be taken as a sample of what the Negro is capable of.
Yet if the Negroes of this country are to serve as an in
dication of the capabilities of the race, it is both unscientific
and unjust to expect the Negroes to pass through two
hundred and fifty years of slavery and in three genera
tions achieve as much as the whites have during many
centuries. If they could, instead of thereby showing that
they are equal to the whites, they would demonstrate their
superiority.

To disabuse the public mind of this slander proceeding
from ill-designing investigators, C. G. Woodson organized
the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History
in Chicago in 1915, hoping to save and pub- The study of
lish the records of the Negro, that the race the ***&&amp;lt;&gt;
may not become a negligible factor in the thought of the

342 The Negro In Our History

world. The work of this Association is to collect socio
logical and historical data, to publish books on Negro life
and history, to promote studies in this field through schools
and clubs with a view to bringing about harmony be
tween the races by interpreting the one to the other. The
supporters of the movement have been well known philan
thropists like Moorefield Storey, Julius Rosenwald and
John D. Rockefeller, Jr., writers like Roland G. Usher,
John M. Mecklin, Justice W. R. Riddell, Jerome Dowd,
J. Franklin Jameson, and Charles H. Wesley, and pub
licists like Frederick L. Hoffman, Talcott Williams, and
Oswald Garrison Villard. For several years the Associa
tion has published works bearing on all phases of the Negro
and also The Journal of Negro History, a quarterly scien
tific magazine which now circulates throughout the civilized
world as a valuable help to students and investigators.

A new note in the progress of the Negro has been
sounded in the appeals of the churches and the civic
organizations in behalf of a square deal for the Negro,
as the murder of Negroes has led to the murder of white
men and the whites, 2 therefore, call for a halt all along
the line. Citizens of both races have been appointed by
mayors, governors and the like to effect an agreement by
which both races may live together for the greatest good
of the greatest number. An effort also has been made
to bridle the radical press which, during the last two gen
erations, by playing up in bright headlines the crimes of
Negroes and suppressing the similar crimes of whites, has
inflamed the public mind against the Negroes as a natu
rally criminal class. A new day is dawning.

2 See Lincoln s speech on lynching in the Appendix.

APPENDIX

Speaking of the effect of the Missouri Compromise, John
Quincy Adams, then Secretary of State, said:

I said that this confounding of the ideas of servitude and labor
was one of the bad effects of slavery; but he (Calhoun) thought it
attended with many excellent consequences. It did not apply to all
kinds of labor not, for example, to farming. He, himself, had
often held the plow; so had his father. Manufacturing and me
chanical labor were not degrading. It was only manual labor the
proper work of slaves. No white person could descend to do that.
And it was the best guarantee to equality among the whites. It
produced an unvarying level among them. It not only did not excite,
but did not even admit of inequalities, by which one white man
could domineer over another.

I told Calhoun I could not see things in the same light. It is, in
truth, all perverted sentiment mistaking labor for slavery, and
dominion for freedom. The discussion of this Missouri question haa
betrayed the secret of their souls. In the abstract they admit that
slavery is an evil, they disclaim all participation in the introduction
of it, and cast it all upon the shoulders of our old Grandam Britain.
But when probed to the quick upon it, they show at the bottom of
their souls pride and vainglory in their condition of masterdom.
They fancy themselves more generous and noble-hearted than the
plain freemen who labor for subsistence. They look down upon the
simplicity of a Yankee s manners, because he has not habits of over
bearing like theirs and cannot treat negroes like dogs. It is among
the evils of slavery that it taints the very sources of moral principles.
It establishes false estimates of virtue and vice; for what can be
more false and heartless than this doctrine which makes the first
and holiest rights of humanity to depend upon the color of the skin ?
It perverts human reason, and reduces men endowed with logical
powers to maintain that slavery is sanctioned by the Christian re
ligion, that slaves are happy and contented in their condition, that
between master and slave there are ties of mutual attachment and
affection, that the virtues of the master are refined and exalted by
the degradation of the slave; while at the same time they vent execra
tions upon the slave-trade, curse Britain for having given them
slaves burn at the stake negroes convicted of crimes for the terror of
the example, and writhe in agonies of fear at the very mention of
human rights as applicable to men of color. The impression pro
duced upon my mind by the progress of this discussion is, that
the bargain between freedom and slavery contained m the Consti-

343

344 Appendix

tution of the United States is morally and politically vicious, in
consistent with the principles upon which alone our Revolution can
be justified; cruel and oppressive, by riveting the chains of slavery,
by pledging the faith of freedom to maintain and perpetuate the
tyranny of the master; and grossly unequal and impolitic by admit
ting that slaves are at once enemies to be kept in subjection,
property to be secured or restored to their owners, and persons not to
be represented themselves, but for whom their masters are privileged
with nearly a double share of representation. The consequence has
been that this slave representation has governed the Union. Ben
jamin portioned above his brethren has ravened as a wolf. In the
morning he has devoured the prey, and at night he has divided the
spoil. It would be no difficult matter to prove, by reviewing the
history of the Union under this Constitution, that almost everything
which has contributed to the honor and welfare of the nation has
been accomplished in despite of them or forced upon them, and that
everything unpropitious and dishonorable, including the blunders and
follies of their adversaries, may be traced to them. I have favored
this Missouri Compromise, believing it to be all that could be
effected under the present Constitution and from extreme unwilling
ness to put the Union at hazard. But perhaps it would have been
a wiser as well as a bolder course to have persisted in the restriction
upon Missouri, till it should have terminated in a convention of the
States to amend and revise the Constitution. This would have
produced a new Union of thirteen or fourteen States unpolluted
with slavery, with a great and glorious object to effect, namely, that
of rallying to their standard the other States by the universal
emancipation of their slaves. If the Union must be dissolved, slavery
is precisely the question upon which it ought to break. For the
present, however, this contest is laid asleep. Stedman and Hutchin-
Bon, American Literature (N. Y., 1888), IV, 213-233, passim.

On these restrictions in Missouri John Sergeant, Pennsyl
vania member of Congress and appointed commissioner to
the Panama Congress, said :

It is time to come to a conclusion ; I fear I have already trespassed
too long. In the effort I have made to submit to the committee my
views of this question, it has been impossible to escape entirely the
influence of the sensation that pervades this House. Yet I have
no such apprehensions as have been expressed. The question is in
deed an important one; but its importance is derived altogether
from its connection with the extension, indefinitely, of negro slavery,
over a land which I trust Providence has destined for the labor and
the support of freemen. I have no fear that this question, much as
it has agitated the country, is to produce any fatal division, or even
to generate a new organization of parties. It is not a question upon
which we ought to indulge unreasonable apprehensions, or yield to
the counsels of fear. It concerns ages to come and millions to be
born. It is, as it were, a question of a new political creation, and it
is for us, under Heaven, to say what shall be its condition. If we

Appendix 345

impose the restriction, it will, I hope, be finally imposed. But, if
hereafter it should be found right to remove it, and the State
consent, we can remove it. Admit the State, without the restriction,
the power is gone forever, and with it are forever gone all the
efforts that have been made by the non-slaveholding States, to repress
and limit the sphere of slavery, and enlarge and extend the blessings
of freedom. With it, perhaps, is gone forever the power of pre
venting the traffic in slaves, that inhuman and detestable traffic, so
long a disgrace to Christendom. In future, and no very distant times,
convenience, and profit, and necessity, may be found as available
pleas as they formerly were, and for the luxury of slaves, we shall
again involve ourselves in the sin of the trade. We must not presume
too much upon the strength of our resolutions. Let every man, who
has been accustomed to the indulgence, ask himself if it is not a
luxury a tempting luxury, which solicits him strongly and at every
moment. The prompt obedience, the ready attention, the submissive
and humble, but eager effort to anticipate command how flattering
to our pride, how soothing to our indolence! To the members from
the south I appeal, to know whether they will suffer any temporary
inconvenience, or any speculative advantage to expose us to the
danger. To those of the north, no appeal can be necessary. To both,
I can most sincerely say, that as I know my own views on this
subject to be free from any unworthy motive, so will I believe that
they likewise have no object but the common good of our common
country; and that nothing would have given me more heartfelt
satisfaction than that the present proposition should have originated
in the same quarter to which we are said to be indebted for the
ordinance of 1787. Then, indeed, would Virginia have appeared in
even more than her wonted splendor, and spreading out the scroll of
her services, would have beheld none of them with greater pleasure,
than that cries which began, by pleading the cause of humanity in
remonstrances against the slave trade, while she was yet a colony,
and embracing her own act of abolition, and the ordinance of 1787,
terminated in the restriction of Missouri. Consider, what a founda
tion our predecessors have laid! And behold, with the blessing of
Providence, how the work has prospered! What is there, in ancient
or in modern times, that can be compared with the growth and
prosperity of the States formed out of the Northwest Territory?
When Europeans reproach us with our negro slavery, when they con
trast our republican boast and pretensions with the existence of this
condition among us, we have our answer ready it is to you we owe
this evil you planted it here, and it has taken such root in the soil
we have not the power to eradicate it. Then, turning to the west,
and directing their attention to Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, we can
proudly tell them, these are the offspring of our policy and our
laws, these are the free productions of the constitution of the United
States. But, if, beyond this smiling region, they should descry
another dark spot upon the face of the new creation another scene
of negro slavery, established by ourselves, and spreading continually
towards the further ocean, what shall we say then? No, sir, let us
follow up the work our ancestors have begun. Let us give to the
world a new pledge of our sincerity. Let the standard of freedom

346 Appendix

be planted in Missouri, by the hands of the constitution, and let its
banner wave over the heads of none but freedom men retaining the
image impressed upon them by their Creator, and dependent upon
none but God and the laws. Then, as our republican States extend,
republican principles will go hand in hand with republican practice
the love of liberty with the sense of justice. Then, sir, the dawn,
beaming from the constitution, whicli now illuminates Ohio, Indiana,
and Illinois, will spread with increasing brightness to the further
west; until in its brilliant luster, the dark spot, which now rests
upon our country, shall be forever hid from sight. Industry, arts,
commerce, knowledge, will flourish with plenty and contentment for
ages to come, and the loud chorus of universal freedom, re-echo from
the Pacific to the Atlantic, the great truths of the declaration of
independence. Then, too, our brethren of the south, if they sincerely
wish it, may scatter their emancipated slaves through this boundless
region, and our country, at length, be happily freed forever from
the foul stain and curse of slavery. And if (may it be far, very far
distant ! ) intestine commotion civil dissension division, should
happen we shall not leave our posterity exposed to the combined
horrors of a Civil and a servile war. If any man still hesitate, in
fluenced by some temporary motive of convenience, or ease, or profit,
I charge him to think what our fathers have suffered for us, and then
to ask his heart, if he can be faithless to the obligation he owes to
posterity! Moore, American Eloquence (N. Y., 1864), II, 531-532.

Calhoun, the champion of the slaveholding interests and
a fearless defender of the justice of slavery, thus com
mented on abolition in 1837 :

As widely as this incendiary spirit has spread, it has not yet in
fected this body, or the great mass of the intelligent and business
portion of the North ; but unless it be speedily stopped, it will spread
and work upwards till it brings the two great sections of the Union
into deadly conflict. This is not a new impression with me. Several
years since, in a discussion with one of the Senators from Massachu
setts ( Mr. Webster ) , before this fell spirit had showed itself, I then
predicted that the doctrine of the proclamation and the Force Bill,
that this Government had a right, in the last resort, to determine
the extent of its own powers, and enforce its decision at the point
of the bayonet, which was so warmly maintained by that Senator,
would at no distant day arouse the dormant spirit of abolitionism. I
told him that the doctrine was tantamount to the assumption of
unlimited power on the part of the Government, and that such would
be the impression on the public mind in a large portion of the Union.
The consequences would be inevitable. A large portion of the North
ern States believed slavery to be a sin, and would consider it as an
obligation of conscience to abolish it if they should feel themselves in
any degree responsible for its continuance, and that this doctrine
would necessarily lead to the belief of such responsibility. . . .

They who imagine that the spirit now abroad in the North will
die away of itself without a shock or convulsion, have formed a

Appendix 347

very inadequate conception of its real character; it will continue to
rise and spread, unless prompt and efficient measures to stay its
progress be adopted. Already it has taken possession of the pulpit,
of the schools, and, to a considerable extent, of the press; those great
instruments by which the mind of the rising generation will be
formed.

However sound the great body of the nonslaveholding States are
at present, in the course of a few years they will be succeeded by
those who will li_.ve been taught to hate the people and institutions
of nearly one-half of this Union, with a hatred more deadly than one
hostile nation ever entertained toward another. It is easy to see the
end. By the necessary course of events, if left to themselves, we must
become, finally, two people. It is impossible under the deadly hatred
which must spring up between the two great sections, if the present
causes are permitted to operate unchecked, that we should continue
under the same political system. The conflicting elements would
burst the Union asunder, powerful as are the links which hold it
together. Abolition and the Union cannot co-exist. As the friend of
the Union, I openly proclaim it, and the sooner it is known the
better. The former may now be controlled, but in a short time it
will be beyond the power of man to arrest the course of events.
We of the South will not, cannot, surrender our institutions. To
maintain the existing relations between the two races, inhabiting
that section of the Union, is indispensable to the peace and happiness
of both. It cannot be subverted without drenching the country in
blood, and extirpating one or the other of the races. Be it good or
bad, it has grown up with our society and institutions, and is so
interwoven with them, that to destroy it would be to destroy us as a
people. But let me not be understood as admitting, even by implica
tion, that the existing relations between the two races in the slave-
holding States is an evil: far otherwise; I hold it to be a good,
as it has thus far proved itself to be to both, and will continue to
prove so if not disturbed by the fell spirit of abolition. . . .

I feel myself called upon to speak freely upon the subject where
the honor and interests of those I represent are involved. I hold
then, that there never has yet existed a wealthy and civilized society
in which one portion of the community did not, in point of fact, live
on the labor of the other. Broad and general as is this assertion, it
is fully borne out by history. ... I fearlessly assert that the existing
relations between the two races in the South, against which these
blind fanatics are waging war, forms the most solid and durable
foundation on which to rear free and stable political institutions.
It is useless to disguise the fact. There is and always has been in
an advanced stage of wealth and civilization, a conflict between
labor and capital. The condition of society in the South exempts us
from the disorders and dangers resulting from this conflict; and
which explains why it is that the political condition of the slave-
holding States has been so much more stable and quiet than that
of the North. The advantages of the former, in this respect, will
become more and more manifest if left undisturbed by interference
from without, as the country advances in wealth and numbers. We
have, in fact, but just entered that condition of society where the

348 Appendix

strength and durability of our political institutions are to be tested ;
and I venture nothing in predicting that the experience of the next
generation will fully test how vastly more favorable our condition
of society is to that of other sections for free and stable institutions,
provided we are not disturbed by the interference of others, or shall
have sufficient intelligence and spirit to resist promptly and suc
cessfully such interference. It rests with ourselves to meet and
repel them. I look not for aid to this Government or to the other
States; not but there are kind feelings toward us on the part of the
great body of the non-slaveholding States; but as kind as their
feelings may be, we may rest assured that no political party in those
States will risk their ascendance for our safety. If we do not
defend ourselves none will defend us; if we yield we will be more
and more pressed as we recede; and if we submit we will be tram
pled under foot. Be assured that emancipation itself would not
satisfy these fanatics; that gained, the next step would be to raise
the negroes to a social and political equality with the whites; and
that being effected, we would soon find the present condition of the
two races reversed. . . . Calhoun, Speeches (N. Y., 1856), II, 628-
633 passim.

The beginnings of the Liberator are well set forth in this
extract :

To the Public.

In the month of August I issued proposals for publishing the
Liberator in Washington city; but the enterprise, though hailed in
different sections of the country, was palsied by public indifference.
Since that time, the removal of the Genius of Universal Emancipa
tion to the Seat of Government has rendered less imperious the
establishment of a similar periodical in that quarter.

During my recent tour for the purpose of exciting the minds of
the people by a series of discourses on the subject of slavery, every
place that I visited gave fresh evidence of the fact, that a greater
revolution in public sentiment was to be effected in the free States
and particularly in New England than in the South. I found con
tempt more bitter, opposition more active, detraction more relentless,
prejudice more stubborn, and apathy more frozen, than among slave
owners themselves. Of course, there were individual exceptions to
the contrary. This state of things afflicted, but did not dishearten
me. I determined, at every hazard, to lift up the standard of
emancipation in the eyes of the nation, within sight of Bunker Hill
and in the birthplace of liberty. That standard is now unfurled;
and long may it float, unhurt by the spoliations of time or the
missiles of a desperate foe yea, till every secret abettor tremble
let their northern apologist tremble let all the enemies of the
persecuted blacks tremble. . . .

I shall not array myself as the political partisan of any man. In
defending the great cause of human rights, I wish to derive the
assistance of all religions and of all parties.

Appendix 349

Assenting to the "self-evident truth" maintained in the American
Declaration of Independence, "that all men are created equal, and
endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights among
which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," I shall
strenuously contend for the immediate enfranchisement of our slave
population. In Park Street Church, on the Fourth of July, 1829, in
an address on slavery, I unreflectingly assented to the popular but
pernicious doctrine of gradual abolition. I seize this opportunity
to make a full and unequivocal recantation, and thus publicly to ask
pardon of my God, of my country, and of my brethren, the poor
slaves, for having uttered a sentiment so full of timidity, injustice,
and absurdity. A similar recantation, from my pen, was published
in the Genius of Universal Emancipation, at Baltimore, in September,
1829. My conscience is now satisfied.

I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but
Is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as
uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think,
or speak, or write, with moderation. No! no! Tell a man whose
house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately
rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to
gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen,
but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am
in earnest I will not equivocate I will not excuse I will not
retreat a single inch and I will be heard. The apathy of the people
is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal, and to hasten
the resurrection of the dead.

It is pretended that I am retarding the cause of emancipation by
the coarseness of my invective and the precipitancy of my measures.
The charge is not true. On this question my influence, humble as it
is, is felt at this moment to a considerable extent, and shall be felt
in coming years not perniciously, but beneficially not as a curse,
but as a blessing; and posterity will bear testimony that I was
right. I desire to thank God, that he enables me to disregard "the
fear of man which bringeth a snare," and to speak his truth in its
simplicity and power. And here I close with this fresh dedication :

Oppression! I have seen thee face to face,

And met thy cruel eye and cloudy brow;

But thy soul-withering glance I fear not now

For dread to prouder feelings doth give place

Of deep abhorrence! Scorning the disgrace

Of slavish knees that at thy footstool bow,

I also kneel but with far other vow

Do hail thee and thy herd of hirelings base:

I swear, while life-blood warms my throbbing veins,

Still to oppose and thwart, with heart and hand,

Thy brutalizing sway till Afric s chains

Are burst, and Freedom rules the rescued land,

Trampling Oppression and iron rod:

Such is the vow I take so help me God!

W. L. Garrison, Works (Boston, 1905), pp. 70-73.

350 Appendix

The constitution of the American Antislavery Society
was :

Whereas, the Most High God "hath made of one blood all nations
of men to dwell on all the face of the earth," and hath commanded
them to love their neighbors as themselves ; and whereas, our National
Existence is based on this principle, as recognized in the Declaration
of Independence, "that all mankind are created equal, and that they
are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among
which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"; and whereas,
after the lapse of nearly sixty years, since the faith and honor of the
American people were pledged to this avowal, before Almighty God
and the World, nearly one-sixth part of the nation are held in bond
age by their fellow-citizens; and whereas, Slavery is contrary to the
principles of natural justice, of our republican form of government,
and of the Christian religion, and is destructive of the prosperity
of the country, while it is endangering the peace, union, and liberties
of the States; and whereas, we believe it the duty and interest of the
masters immediately to emancipate their slaves, and that no scheme
of expatriation, either voluntary or by compulsion, can remove this
great and increasing evil; and whereas, we believe that it is prac
ticable, by appeals to the consciences, hearts, and interests of the
people, to awaken a public sentiment throughout the nation that will
be opposed to the continuance of Slavery in any part of the Republic,
and by effecting the speedy abolition of Slavery, prevent a general
convulsion; and whereas, we believe we owe it to the oppressed, to
our fellow-citizens who hold slaves, to our whole country, to posterity,
and to God, to do all that is lawfully in our power to bring about
the extinction of Slavery, we do hereby agree, with a prayerful re
liance on the Divine aid, to form ourselves into a society, to be
governed by the following Constitution:

Article I. This Society shall be called The American Antislavery
Society.

Article II. The objects of this Society are the entire abolition of
slavery in the United States. While it admits that each State, in
which Slavery exists, has, by the Constitution of the United States,
the exclusive right to legislate in regard to its abolition in said
State, it shall aim to convince all our fellow-citizens, by arguments
addressed to their understandings and consciences, that Slavehold-
ing is a heinous crime in the sight of God, and that the duty, safety,
and best interests of all concerned, require its immediate abandon
ment, without expatriation. The Society will also endeavor, in a
constitutional way, to influence Congress to put an end to the
domestic Slave trade, and to abolish Slavery in all those portions of
our common country which come under its control, especially in the
District of Columbia, and likewise to prevent the extension of it to
any State that may be hereafter admitted to the Union.

Article III. This Society shall aim to elevate the character and
condition of the people of color, by encouraging their intellectual,
moral, and religious improvement, and by removing public prejudice,
that thus they may, according to their intellectual moral worth, share

Appendix 351

an equality with the whites, of civil and religious privileges ; but this
Society will never in any way countenance the oppressed in vindi
cating their rights by resorting to physical force.

Article IV. Any person who consents to the principles of this
Constitution, who contributes to the funds of this Society, and is
not a Slaveholder, may be a member of this Society, and shall be
entitled to vote at the meetings.

The text is in a pamphlet, entitled Platform of the American Anti-
slavery Society and Its Auxiliaries (New York, 1855), pp. 3, 4.
The fullest account of the convention is in William Lloyd Garrison:
Story of His Life Told by His Children, I, pp. 392-415, where is also
a copy of the Declaration. The Declaration is also in the pamphlet
above cited. For Whittier s account, see Atlantic Monthly, Vol.
XXXIII, pp. 166-172. (February, 1874.)

This appeal of a Southern Matron for patience is a case
in evidence of the thinking element in the South:

Shut your eyes no longer, my countrymen the Union is threatened ;
and all the blessings it confers, and which our fathers suffered and
died to attain, must perish with it. Scorn not the feeble voice of a
woman, when she calls on you to awake to your danger, ere it be
forever too late. We are told that the citizens of the North would
arouse our slaves to exert their physical force against us but we
cannot, we will not believe the foul, shocking, unnatural tale. What !
have the daughters of the South inflicted such injuries on their
Northern brethren, as to render them objects of their deadly, ex
terminating hate? Have helpless age, smiling infancy, virgin purity
no claims on the generous, the highminded and the brave? Would
they introduce the serpents of fear and withering anxiety into the
Edens of domestic bliss; bathe our peaceful hearths with blood, and
force us to abhor those ties which now unite us as one people, and
which we so lately taught our sons to regard as our pride ? We can
not believe it. We cannot be so unjust to the enlightened and humane
citizens of the Northern States, as to suppose for a moment that
they approve of the course pursued by those reckless agitators who
seek to inflict such cruel calamities on the South. The poor slave
himself merits not at their hands the mischief and woe which his
mistaken advocates would heap on his devoted head; for even they
cannot imagine that an exertion of physical force on their part could
result in aught but his destruction. No the Northern people are too
well acquainted with historical facts, to condemn u for evils which
we deprecated as warmly as themselves, but which were ruthlessly
imposed on us by the power of Great Britain.

So far from condemning, they must sympathize with us; for they
well know that slavery was forced upon us, and that as early as 17bl
the Southern colonies earnestly sought to avert it by passing acts
imposing duties on slaves, and even prohibiting their importation. In
spite of sectional prejudices (alas, too often fostered for the worst
ends by the unprincipled and ambitious) in spite of conflicting in-

352 Appendix

tcrests, the people of the North are our brethren. Together our
fathers shared many a peril. Side by side, they fought and bled in
defense of their common country. Their united wisdom was exerted
to form our glorious Constitution, and these republican institutions,
which so justly are our boast, and the safeguard of our liberties.
Would the sons overthrow the noble fabric their fathers assisted to
rear, even now, when towering aloft in its majesty and beauty, it
attracts the admiration of the world? We cannot believe they are
prepared for so suicidal an act. The States are all more or less
dependent on each other. Let one portion be weakened and depressed,
the whole must ultimately suffer. Oh ! that a spirit of compromise,
forbearance, and brotherly love could be infused into our coun
cils, and animate the bosoms of our public men. Then the voice
of contention would be hushed into silence. The insidious treach
ery of the incendiary would meet the contempt it merits, and
factious demagogues would shrink abashed beneath the deep,
stern voice of a nation s censure. Then the daughters of Amer
ica could look joyfully on their sons and indulge the proud
hope that they and their children would live and die the free
and happy citizens of the great, nourishing and United States of
America.

Deluded emancipators of the North, we now appeal to you! We
deprecate slavery as much as you. W T e as ardently desire the lib
erty of the whole human race; but what can we do? The slow hand
of time must overcome these difficulties now insurmountable. An
evil, the growth of ages, cannot be remedied in a day. Our virtuous
and enlightened men will doubtless effect much by cautious exertion,
if their efforts are not checked by your rash attempts to dictate on a
subject on which it is impossible that you can form a correct judg
ment. Forbear your inflammatory addresses. They but rivet the
fetters of the slaves, and render them ten thousand times more gall
ing. You sacrifice his happiness, as well as that of his owner, for,
by rendering him an object of suspicion and alarm you deprive him
of the regard, confidence, and, I may add, with the utmost truth,
the affection of his master. You render a being now light-hearted
and joyous, moody, wretched yes, hopelessly wretched. You wreak
on the innocent and helpless, who, had they the will, possess not the
power to bid the slave be free from all his imagined wrongs. You
agonize gentle bosoms, which glow with Christian charity towards
the whole human race, of whatever color they may be. Fearful
forebodings mingle with all a deep, imperishable love, as the matron
bends over the infant that smiles in her face, and with more shud
dering horror, she trembles as she gazes on the daughters, whose
youthful beauty, goodness and grace shed the sunshine of joy and
hope over the winter of life. I appeal to you as Christians, as
patriots, as men, generous, highminded men, to forbear. By all
you hold sacred by your own feelings or the wives of your bosom
and the children of your love, pause and reflect on the mischief
and woe you seek to inflict on both the white and colored population
of the Southern States. . . .

"A Southern Nation," The Colonizationist (Boston, 1834), 75-77.

Appendix 353

The following speech of John Quincy Adams shows his
later attitude on slavery and the like :

The inconsistency of the institution of domestic slavery with the
principles of the Declaration of Independence was seen and lamented
by all the Southern patriots of the Revolution; by no one with
deeper and more unalterable conviction than by the author of the
Declaration himself. No insincerity or hypocrisy can fairly be laid
to their charge. Never from their lips was heard one syllable of
attempt to justify the institution of slavery. They universally con
sidered it as a reproach fastened upon them by the unnatural step
mother country; and they saw that, before the principles of the
Declaration of Independence, slavery, in common with every other
mode of oppression, was destined sooner or later to be banished
from the earth. Such was the undoubting conviction of Jefferson
to his dying day. In the memoir of his life, written at the age of
seventy-seven, he gave to his countrymen the solemn and emphatic
warning that the day was not distant when they must hear and
adopt the general emancipation of their slaves. "Nothing is more
certainly written," said he, "in the book of fate, than that these
people are to be free. My countrymen! It is written in a better
volume than the book of fate; it is written in the laws of Nature
and of Nature s God."

We are told, indeed, by the learned doctors of the nullification
school, that color operates as a forfeiture of the rights of human
nature; that a dark skin turns a man into a chattel; that crispy
hair transforms a human being into a four-footed beast. The master-
priest informs you that slavery is consecrated and sanctified by the
Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament; that Ham waa
the father of Canaan, and all his posterity were doomed, by his own
father, to be hewers of wood and drawers of water to the descendants
of Shem and Japhet; that the native Americans of African descent
are the children of Ham, with the curse of Noah still fastened upon
them; and the native Americans of European descent are children of
Japhet, pure Anglo-Saxon blood, born to command, and to live by
the sweat of another s brow. The master-philosopher teaches you
that slavery is no curse, but a blessing! that Providence Providence!
has so ordered it that this country should be inhabited by two
races of men, one born to wield the scourge, and the other to bear
the record of its stripes upon his back; one to earn, through a toil
some life, the other s bread, and to feed him on a bed of roses; that
slavery is the guardian and promoter of wisdom and virtue; that
the slave, by laboring for another s enjoyment, learns disinterested
ness and humility; that the master, nurtured, clothed, and sheltered,
by another s toils, learns to be generous and grateful to the slave,
and sometimes to feel for him as a father for his child; that,
released from the necessity of supplying his own wants, he acquires
opportunity of leisure to improve his mind, to purify his heart, to
cultivate his taste ; that he has time on his hands to plunge into the
depths of philosophy, and to soar to the clear empyrean or seraphic
morality. The master-statesman ay, the statesman in the land

354 Appendix

of the Declaration of Independence, in the halls of national legisla
tion, with the muse of history recording his words as they drop
from his lips, with the colossal figure of American Liberty leaning
on a column entwined with the emblem of eternity over his head,
with the forms of Washington and Lafayette speaking to him from
the canvas turns to the image of the father of his country, and,
forgetting that the last act of his life was to emancipate his slaves,
to bolster up the cause of slavery, says, "That man was a slave
holder."

My countrymen! these are the tenets of the modern nullification
school. Can you wonder that they shrink from the light of free
discussion that they skulk from the grasp of freedom and of truth?
Is there among you one who hears me, solicitous above all things for
the preservation of the Union so truly dear to us of that Union pro
claimed in the Declaration of Independence of that Union never to
be divided by any act whatever and who dreads that the discussion
of the merits of slavery will endanger the continuance of the Union?
Let him discard his terrors, and be assured that they are no other
than the phantom fears of nullification; that, while doctrines
like these are taught in her schools of philosophy, preached in her
pulpits, and avowed in her legislative councils, the free, unrestrained
discussion of the rights and wrongs of slavery, far from endangering
the Union of these States, is the only condition upon which that
Union can be preserved and perpetuated. What! are you to be told,
with one breath, that the transcendent glory of this day consists in
the proclamation that all lawful government is founded on the
inalienable rights of man, and, with the next breath, that you
must not whisper this truth to the winds, lest they should taint
the atmosphere with freedom, and kindle the flame of insurrection?
Are you to bless the earth beneath your feet because she spurna
the footsteps of a slave, and then to choke the utterance of your
voice lest the sound of liberty should be reechoed from the palmetto
groves, .mingled with the discordant notes of disunion? No! no!
Freedom of speech is the only safety-valve which, under the high
pressure of slavery, can preserve your political boiler from a fearful
and fatal explosion. Let it be admitted that slavery is an institu
tion of internal police, exclusively subject to the separate jurisdic
tion of the States where it is cherished as a blessing, or tolerated aa
an evil as yet irremediable. But let that slavery which intrenches
itself within the walls of her own impregnable fortress not sally
forth to conquest over the domain of freedom. Intrude not beyond
the hallowed bounds of oppression; but, if you have by solemn
compact doomed your ears to hear the distant clanking of the chain,
let not the fetters of the slave be forged afresh upon your own
eoil ; far less permit them to be riveted upon your own feet. Quench
not the spirit of freedom. Let it go forth, not in panoply of fleshly
wisdom, but with the promise of peace, and the voice of per
suasion, clad in the whole armor of truth, conquering and to con
quer.

Josiah Quiney, Memoir of the Life of John Quwcy Adams (Boston,
1858), 272-275.

Appendix 355

In the following speech Joshua R. Giddings attacked the
policy of yielding ground to slavery :

It is well known, Mr. Chairman, that, since the formation of this
confederacy, there has been a supposed conflict between the southern
and the northern States. I do not say that the conflict is real; I
only say that, in the minds of the people, both North and South, and
in this hall, such a conflict exists. This has given rise to a differ
ence of policy in our national councils. I refer to the tariff in
particular, as being a favorite measure of the North, while free trade
is advocated more generally by the South. I refer also to our
harbor improvements, and the improvement of our river navigation,
as another measure in which the Northwest and West have felt
great interest, and to which the South have been constantly op
posed. But so equally balanced has been the political power, be
tween these opposing interests, that for five years past our lake
commerce has been entirely abandoned; and such were the defects
of the tariff, that for many years our revenues were unequal to
the support of government.

By the fixed order of nature s law, our population at the North
has increased so much faster than it has in the slave States, that
under the late census the North and West hold the balance of po
litical power; and at the present session we have passed through
this body a bill for the protection of our lake and river commerce,
which awaits the action of the Senate to become a law. But let
us admit Texas, and we shall place the balance of power in the
hands of Texas. They, with the southern States, will control the
policy and the destiny of this nation ; our tariff will then be held at
the will of the Texan advocates of free trade.

Are our friends of the North prepared to deliver over this policy
to the people of Texas? Are the liberty-loving democrats of Penn
sylvania ready to give up the tariff? To strike off all protection
from the articles of iron and coal and other productions of that
State, in order to purchase a slave-market for their neighbors, who,
in the words of Thomas Jefferson Randolph, "breed men for the
market like oxen for the shambles?"

I do not argue to the policy of protecting our American manu
factures. I only say, that at this time, New England and the free
States generally are in favor of it, while the slave States are equally
opposed to it. And I ask are the mechanics and manufacturers of the
North prepared to abandon their employments, in order that slave-
markets may be established in Texas, and a brisk traffic in bodies,
the flesh and blood of our southern population may be maintained ?
Are the farmers of the West, of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, pre
pared to give up the sale of their beef, pork, and flour, in order
to increase the profits of those who raise children for sale, and
deal in the bodies of women? Are the free States prepared to
suspend their harbor and river improvements for the purpose of
establishing this slave-trade with Texas, and to perpetuate slavery
therein ?

But, if Texas be admitted to the Union, it is to be a slave-
holding State, out of which several States are hereafter to be ad-

356 Appendix

mitted, with the advantages over our free States of holding a
representation on this floor, and a vote in the election of president
and vice-president, and in the administration of the federal govern
ment, in proportion to the number of slaves they shall hold in
bondage. In other words, their influence on all these subjects is to
be proportioned to their contempt of liberty. The Texan, who
holds five slaves, is to wield an influence over our national interests
equal to four of our northern freemen. If each holds fifty slaves,
his influence will be equal to that of thirty-one of the independent
electors of the free States. I ask the learned gentleman from
Indiana (Mr. Owen) if he really estimates the political worth of his
constituents so low as to require thirty-one of them to form an
aggregate of political influence equal to that of the piratical owner
of fift_ "human chattels" in Texas? Or does he estimate his own
political worth at one-fourth part of that which he attaches to the
holder of five slaves in Texas? I wish gentlemen here would speak
out, and let us know the real estimate which they put upon the
moral and political worth of northern men? Would to God I were
able to speak to every man of every party, north of Mason and
Dixon s Line. I would demand of them as men, as freemen, to
come forward, and let the country understand whether any one of
them is willing thus to degrade himself; or whether any one of
them is willing to be thus degraded by his representatives in this
hall. This proposition, come from whom it may, from persons high
in office, or from those wishing to be high in office, is insulting to
northern feeling and northern honor. Sir, why not propose at once
that our people shall surrender themselves as slaves to the Texan
planters? Why not advise the people of our free States at once
to leave their homes, to go to Texas, and become the voluntary
"hewers of wood and drawers of water" to those fugitive criminals,
who, within the last fifteen years, were driven from the United
States to avoid punishment for their crimes? . . .

Joshua R. Giddings, Speeches in Congress (Boston, 1853), 104-106.

As the following extract from his speech shows, Sumner
believed in the equality of all men before the law. He said :

The way is now prepared to consider the nature of Equality, as
Becured by the Constitution of Massachusetts. The Declaration of
Independence, which followed the French Encyclopedia and the po
litical writings of Rousseau, announces among self-evident truths,
"that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." The Constitution of Massa
chusetts repeats the same truth in a different form, saying, in its
first article: "All men are born free and equal, and have certain
natural essential, and unalienable rights, among which may be
reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and lib
erties." Another article explains what is meant by Equality, saying:
"No man, nor corporation or association of men, have any other title

Appendix 357

to obtain advantages, or particular and exclusive privileges, distinct
from those of the community, that what arises from the consider
ation of services rendered to the public ; and this title being in nature
neither hereditary, nor transmissible to children, or descendants, or
relations by blood, the idea of a man being born a magistrate, law
giver, or judge is absurd and unnatural." This language, in its
natural signification, condemns every form of inequality in civil and
political institutions.

These declarations, though in point of time before the ampler
declarations of France, may be construed in the light of the latter.
Evidently they seek to declare the same principle. They are decla
rations of Rights; and the language employed, though general in
character, is obviously limited to those matters within the design
of a declaration of Rights. And permit me to say, it is a childish
Bophism to adduce any physical or mental inequality in argument
against Equality of Rights.

Obviously, men are not born equal in physical strength or in
mental capacity, in beauty of form or health of body. Diversity
or inequality in these respects is the law of creation. From
this difference springs divine harmony. But this inequality is
in no particular inconsistent with complete civil and political
equality.

The equality declared by our fathers in 1776, and made the
fundamental law of Massachusetts in 1780, was Equality before the
Law. Its object was to efface all political or civil distinctions, and
to abolish all institutions founded upon birth. "All men are created
equal," says the Declaration of Independence. "All men are born
free and equal," says the Massachusetts Bill of Rights. These are
not vain words. Within the sphere of their influence, no person
can be created, no person can be born with civil or political privi
leges not enjoyed equally by all his fellow-citizens; nor can any
institution be established, recognizing distinction of birth. Here is
the Great Charter of every human being drawing vital breath upon
this soil, whatever may be his condition, and whoever may be his
parents. He may be poor, weak, humble, or black; he may be of
Caucasian, Jewish, Indian, or Ethiopian race, he may be of French,
German, English, or Irish extraction; but before the Constitution
of Massachusetts all these distinctions disappear. He is not poor,
weak, humble, or black; nor is he Caucasian, Jew, Indian, or
Ethiopian; nor is he French, German, English, or Irish; he is a MAN,
the equal of all his fellow-men. He is one of the children of the
State, which, like an impartial parent, regards all its offsprings with
an equal care. To some it may justly allot higher duties, according
to higher capacities; but it welcomes all to its equal hospitable
board. The State, imitating the divine justice, is no respecter of
persons.

Here nobility cannot exist, because it is a privilege from birth. But
the same anathema which smites and banishes nobility must also
smite and banish every form of discrimination founded on birth,

"Quamvis ille niger, quamvis tu candidus esses."

Charles Sumner, Works (Boston, 1875), II, 340-342.

358 Appendix

Voicing a strong protest against the theory that the
rightfulness of slavery must not be publicly discussed or
questioned, Joshua R. Giddings said :

Sir, certain Senators in the other end of the capitol have for
months been endeavoring to convince the people of the necessity of
passing the "omnibus bill," as it is called. No arguments could be
raised in favor of that measure, for it was not founded on reason.
One consideration alone was pressed upon the public mind. The
cry was raised that "the Union was in danger!" The newspapers here
responded, "the Union is in danger!" The country press repeated
the alarm. The cry was caught up and echoed by every timid,
faltering poltroon of the North. Petitions to "save the Union"
were circulated. Public meetings were held in our commercial cities
where Texas scrip was mostly influential, and resolutions were
adopted "to save the Union." The supplications were not that we
"may legislate in righteousness," deal out justice and mercy to
those who are oppressed and degraded by our laws. These were
regarded as objects of trifling importance, when compared with the
pending danger that Texas would dissolve the Union. Indeed, they
are never mentioned by our chaplain.

Sir, I am nauseated, sickened at this moral and political effem
inacy; this downright cowardice. It is unworthy of American states
men. Our constituents sent us here to maintain and defend their
rights; not to surrender them; not to make ourselves and our people
tributary to Texas. In electing us, they had no expectation that
we would turn upon them and violently thrust our hands into their
pockets and take therefrom ten millions of dollars, and hand it over
to the slave-holders of Texas, for territory which belongs to us, and
to which Texas never had any title whatever.

Sir, gentlemen here may say what they please; the people have no
fears of a dissolution of the Union. They understand this kind of
gasconade. The cry of "dissolution" has been the dernier resort of
southern men for fifty years, whenever they desired to frighten
doughfaces into a compliance with their measures. It may alarm
gentlemen here; but I do not think you can find in northern Ohio an
equal number of nervous old women or of love-sick girls, who could
be moved by it.

Again, it is said that we must stop this agitation in relation to
slavery! The people see us here passing laws to enslave our fellow
men; to sell women in open market; to create a traffic in the bodies
of children. They know this to be opposed to the self-evident truth
that "all men are created equal," "that governments are constituted
to sustain that equality of rights"; and they converse on the sub
ject, examine the reasons on which such traffic is based, and vote
for men who will oppose such barbarous practices. This is called
agitation; and gentlemen here talk of suppressing it by passing
such laws as that on your table. This is the manner in which we
are to stop the progress of truth; to seal the lips of philanthropists;
and to silence the voice of humanity. Yes, Sir, it is gravely proposed

Appendix 359

that we should set bounds to the human intellect, and to limit
political investigations by statute laws.

Sir, the great founder of our holy religion, when he proclaimed the
Heaven-born truths of his Gospel, was denounced as an "agitator."
He was arrested, condemned, and executed for asserting truths which
the Scribes and Pharisees were too stupid to comprehend. It was
done to stop agitation; but truth, emanating from "the Holy One,"
has extended, spread, and progressed, and will "go on conquering and
to conquer," in spite of all the political Scribes and Pharisees in
Congress, and the quaking and trembling of dough-faces here and
elsewhere.

This progress in morals and in political intelligence is in strict
accordance with the law of our being, and cannot be prevented. The
idea of setting bounds to the human intellect, of circumscribing it
by statute law, is preposterous. Why not limit the arts and
sciences by conservative legislation, as well as moral and political
progress? Why not follow the example of those who attempted to
stop the agitation of Galileo, when he proclaimed the truth of our
solar system, and the laws by which the planets are retained in
their orbits? He caused great agitation, and was excommunicated
for his infidelity, in thus daring to proclaim truths which the
conservatives of that age were too ignorant to comprehend. It
required two hundred and fifty years for the stupid clergy of that
day to understand the truths for which he had been expelled from
their Christian fellowship. How long it will require certain theo
logical professors of the present day to comprehend the "self-evident
truths" of man s equality, is not yet determined. Or how long it will
require our political doctors to comprehend the very obvious fact
that an educated and reflecting people will think and act for
themselves, is yet to be ascertained.

But, if we are to have conservative legislation, let us tear down
the telegraphic wires, break up our galvanic batteries, and imprison
Morse, and stop all agitation upon the subject of your "magnetic rail
roads of thought." Lay up your steamboats, place fetters upon your
locomotives, convert your railroads into cultivated fields, and erase
the name of Fulton from our history. Go down to yonder Institute,
drive Page from his laboratory, break in pieces his galvanic en
gines, and unchain the imprisoned lightning which is there pent up ;
then pass an act of Congress prohibiting all further agitation on
these subjects, and thus carry out your conservative principles, of
which some men are continually boasting. . . .

Joshua R. Giddings, Speeches in Congress (Boston, 1853), 409-411.

Giving great offense to Jefferson Davis and other South
ern friends, William H. Seward spoke thus for The Higher
Law than the Constitution:

There is another aspect of the principle of compromise which
deserves consideration. It assumes that slavery, if not the only
institution in a slave State, is at least a ruling institution, and

360 Appendix

that this characteristic is recognized by the Constitution. But
slavery is only one of many institutions there. Freedom is equally
an institution there. Slavery is only a temporary, accidental, partial,
and incongruous one. Freedom, on the contrary, is a perpetual,
organic, universal one, in harmony with the Constitution of the
United States. The slaveholder himself stands under the protection
of the latter, in common with all the free citizens of that state. But
it is, moreover, an indispensable institution. You may separate
slavery from South Carolina, and the state will still remain; but if
you subvert freedom there, the state will cease to exist. But the
principle of this compromise gives complete ascendency in the slave
states, and in the Constitution of the United States, to the sub
ordinate, accidental, and incongruous institution, over its paramount
antagonist. To reduce this claim of slavery to an absurdity, it is
only necessary to add that there are only two states in which slaves
are a majority, and not one in which the slaveholders are not a very
disproportionate minority.

But there is yet another aspect in which this principle must be
examined. It regards the domain only as a possession, to be enjoyed
either in common or by partition by the citizens of the old states.
It is true, indeed, that the national domain is ours. It is true it
was acquired by the valor and with the wealth of the whole nation.
But we hold, nevertheless, no arbitrary power over it. We hold
no arbitrary authority over anything, whether acquired lawfully
or seized by usurpation. The Constitution regulates our steward
ship; the Constitution devotes the domain to union, to justice, to
defense, to welfare, and to liberty.

But there is a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates
our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble
purposes. The territory is a part, no inconsiderable part, of the
common heritage of mankind bestowed upon them by the Creator of
the universe. We are his stewards, and must so discharge our trust
as to secure in the highest attainable degree their happiness. How
momentous that trust is we may learn from the instructions of the
founder of modern philosophy:

"No man," says Bacon, "can by care-taking, as the Scripture saith,
add a cubit to his stature in this little model of a man s body;
but, in the great frame of kingdoms and commonwealths, it is in the
power of princes or estates to add amplitude and greatness to their
kingdoms. For, by introducing such ordinances, constitutions, and
customs, as are wise, they may sow greatness to their posterity and
successors. But these things are commonly not observed, but left
to take their chance."

This is a state, and we are deliberating for it, just as our
fathers deliberated in establishing the institutions we enjoy. What
ever superiority there is in our condition and hopes over those of
any other "kingdom" or "estate" is due to the fortunate circum
stance that our ancestors did not leave things to "take their
chance," but that they "added amplitude and greatness" to our
common-wealth "by introducing such ordinances, constitutions, and
customs, as were wise." We in our turn have succeeded to the
same responsibilities, and we cannot approach the duty before us

Appendix 361

wisely or justly, except we raise ourselves to the great consideration
of how we can most certainly "sow greatness to our posterity and
successors."

And now the simple, bold, and even awful, question which presents
Itself to us is this: Shall we, who are founding institutions, social
and political, for countless millions; shall we, who know by experi
ence the wise and the just, and are free to choose them, and to reject
the erroneous and unjust; shall we establish human bondage, or
permit it by our sufferance to be established? Sir, our forefathers
would not have hesitated an hour. They found slavery existing
here, and they left it only because they could not remove it. There
is not only no free State which would now establish it, but there is
no slave State, which, if it had had the free alternative as we
now have, would have founded slavery. Indeed, our revolutionary
predecessors had precisely the same question before them in estab
lishing an organic law under which the states of Ohio, Indiana,
Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin, have since come into the Union,
and they solemnly repudiated and excluded slavery from those states
forever. I confess that the most alarming evidence of our degeneracy
which has yet been given is found in the fact that we even debate
such a question. . . .

The senator proposes to expel me. I am ready to meet that trial,
too; and if I shall be expelled, I shall not be the first man subjected
to punishment for maintaining that there is a power higher than
human law, and that power delights in justice; that rulers, whether
despots or elected rulers of a free people, are bound to administer
justice for the benefit of society.

William H. Seward, Works (N. Y., 1853), I, pp. 74-129.

The following speech from Lincoln exposed the fallacy of
the so-called reasonableness of slavery:

Equality in society alike beats inequality, whether the latter be
of the British aristocratic sort or of the domestic slavery sort. We
know Southern men declare that their slaves are better off than
hired laborers among us. How little they know whereof they speak!
There is no permanent class of hired laborers amongst us. Twenty-
five years ago I was a hired laborer. The hired laborer of yesterday
labors on his own account to-day, and will hire others to labor for
him to-morrow. Advancement improvement in condition is the
order of things in a society of equals. As labor is the common
burden of our race, so the effort of some to shift their share of
the burden onto the shoulders of others is the great durable curse of
the race. Originally a curse for transgression upon the whole race,
when, as by slavery, it is concentrated on a part only, it becomes
the double-refined curse of God upon his creatures.

Free labor has the inspiration of hope; pure slavery has no hope.
The power of hope upon human exertion and happiness is wonderful.
The slave-master himself has a conception of it, and hence the system
of tasks among slaves. The slave whom you cannot drive with the
lash to break seventy-five pounds of hemp in a day, if you will ask

362 Appendix

him to break a hundred, and promise him pay for all he does over,
he will break you a hundred and fifty. You have substituted hope
for the rod. And yet perhaps it does not occur to you that to the
extent of your gain in the case, you have given up the slave system
and adopted the free system of labor.

If A can prove, however, conclusively, that he may of right enslave
B, why may not B snatch the same argument and prove equally that
he may enslave A? You say A is white and B is black. It ia
color, then; the lighter having the right to enslave the darker?
Take care. By this rule you are to be slave to the first man you
meet with a fairer skin than your own. You do not mean color
exactly? You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the
blacks, and therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care
again. By this rule you are to be slave to the first man you meet
with an intellect superior to your own. But, you say, it is a ques
tion of interest, and if you make it your interest you have the right
to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest
he has the right to enslave you.

The ant who has toiled and dragged a crumb to his nest will
furiously defend the fruit of his labor against whatever robber
assails him. So plain that the most dumb and stupid slave that ever
toiled for a master does constantly know that he is wronged. So
plain that no one, high or low, ever does mistake it, except in a
plainly selfish way; for although volume upon volume is written to
prove slavery a very good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes
to take the good of it by being a slave himself.

Most governments have been based, practically, on the denial of
the equal rights of men as I have, in part, stated them; ours began
by affirming those rights. They said, some men are too ignorant
and vicious to share in government. Possibly so, said we; and, by
your system, you would always keep them ignorant and vicious. We
proposed to give all a chance; and we expected the weak to grow
stronger, the ignorant wiser, and all better and happier together.

We made the experiment, and the fruit is before us. Look at it,
think of it. Look at it in its aggregate grandeur, of extent of coun
try, and numbers of population of ship, and steamboat, and
railroad. . . .

Thus we see that the plain, unmistakable spirit of that age toward
slavery was hostility to the principles and toleration only by
necessity.

But now it is to be transformed into a "sacred right." Nebraska
brings it forth, places it on the highroad to extension and perpetuity,
and with a pat on its back says to it, "Go, and God speed you."
Henceforth it is to be the chief jewel of the nation the very figure
head of the ship of state. Little by little, but steadily as man s
march to the grave, we have been giving up the old for the new faith.
Nearly eighty years ago we began by declaring that all men are
created equal; but now from that beginning we have run down to
the other declaration, that for some men to enslave others is a
"sacred right of self-government." These principles cannot stand
together. They are as opposite as God and Mammon; and whoever
holds to the one must despise the other. When Pettit, in connection

Appendix 363

with hia support of the Nebraska bill, called the Declaration of
Independence "a self-evident lie," he only did what consistency and
candor require all other Nebraska men to do. Of the forty-odd
Nebraska senators who sat present and heard him, no one rebuked
him. Nor am I apprised that any Nebraska newspaper, or any
Nebraska orator, in the whole nation has ever rebuked him. If
this had been said among Marion s men, Southerners though they
were, what would have become of the man who said it? If this had
been said to the men who captured Andre, the man who said it would
probably have been hung sooner than Andre was. If it had been said
in old Independence Hall seventy-eight years ago, the very door
keeper would have throttled the man and thrust him into the street.
Let no one be deceived. The spirit of seventy-six and the spirit of
Nebraska are utter antagonisms; and the former is being rapidly
displaced by the latter.

Fellow-countrymen, Americans, South as well as North, shall we
make no effort to arrest this? Already the liberal party throughout
the world express the apprehension "that the one retrograde institu
tion in America is undermining the principles of progress, and
fatally violating the noblest political system the world ever saw."
This is not the taunt of enemies, but the warning of friends. Is it
quite safe to disregard it to despise it? Is there no danger to
liberty itself in discarding the earliest practice and first precept of
our ancient faith? In our greedy chase to make profit of the
negro, let us beware lest we "cancel and tear in pieces" even the
white man s charter of freedom.

Our republican robe is soiled and trailed in the dust. Let ua
repurify it. Let us turn and wash it white in the spirit, if not in
the blood, of the Revolution. Let us turn slavery from its claims
of "moral right" back upon its existing legal rights and its argu
ments of "necessity." Let us return it to the position our fathers
gave it, and there let it rest in peace. Let us readopt the Declara
tion of Independence, and with it the practices and policy which
harmonize with it. Let North and South, let all Americans let
all lovers of liberty everywhere join in the great and good work.
If we do this, we shall not only have saved the Union, but we shall
have so saved it that the succeeding millions of free, happy people,
the world over, shall rise up and call us blessed to the latest genera
tions.

Abraham Lincoln, Early Speeches (N. Y., 1907), 216-264.

Some of the thoughts of The Irrepressible Conflict of
Freedom and Slavery were :

This African slave system is one which, in its origin and in its
growth, has been altogether foreign from the habits of the races
which colonized these states and established civilization here. It was
introduced on this continent as an engine of conquest, and for the
establishment of monarchial power, by the Portuguese and the Span
iards, and was rapidly extended by them all over South America,
Central America, Louisiana, and Mexico. Its legitimate fruits are

364 Appendix

seen in the poverty, imbecility, and anarchy which now pervade all
Portuguese and Spanish America. The free-labor system is of Ger
man extraction, and it was established in our country by emigrants
from Sweden, Holland, Germany, Great Britain, and Ireland. We
justly ascribe to its influences the strength, wealth, greatness, in
telligence, and freedom, which the whole American people now
enjoy. One of the chief elements of the value of human life is
freedom in the pursuit of happiness. The slave system is not only
intolerable, unjust, and inhuman, toward the laborer, whom, only
because he is a laborer, it loads down with chains and converts into
merchandise, but is scarcely less severe upon the freeman, to whom,
only because he is a laborer from necessity, it denies facilities for
employment, and whom it expels from the community because it can
not enslave and convert into merchandise also. It is necessarily im
provident and ruinous, because, as a general truth, communities pros
per and flourish, or droop and decline, in just the degree that they
practice or neglect to practice the primary duties of justice and
humanity. The free-labor system conforms to the divine law of
equality, which is written in the hearts and consciences of men, and
therefore is always and everywhere beneficent.

The slave system is one of constant danger, distrust, suspicion,
and watchfulness. It debases those whose toil alone can produce
wealth and resources for defense, to the lowest degree of which
human nature is capable, to guard against mutiny and insurrection,
and thus wastes energies which otherwise might be employed in
national development and aggrandizement.

The free-labor system educates all alike, and by opening all the
fields of industrial employment and all the departments of authority,
to the unchecked and equal rivalry of all classes of men, at once
secures universal contentment, and brings into the highest possible ac
tivity all the physical, moral, and social energies of the whole state.
In states where the slave system prevails, the masters, directly or
indirectly, secure all the political power, and constitute a ruling
aristocracy. In states where the free-labor system prevails, universal
suffrage necessarily obtains, and the state inevitably becomes, sooner
or later, a republic or democracy. . . .

Hitherto the two systems have existed in different states, but
side by side within the American Union. This has happened be
cause the Union is a confederation of states. But in another aspect
the United States constitute only one nation. Increase of popula
tion, which is filling the states out to their very borders, together
with a new and extended network of railroads and other avenues,
and an internal commerce which daily becomes more intimate, is
rapidly bringing the states into a higher and more perfect social unity
or consolidation. Thus, these antagonistic systems are continually
coming into closer contact, and collision results.

Shall I tell you what this collision means? They who think that
it is accidental, unnecessary, the work of interested or fanatical
agitators, and therefore ephemeral, mistake the case altogether.
It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces,
and it means that the United States must and will, sooner or later,
become either entirely a slave-holding nation or entirely a free-labor

Appendix 365

nation. Either the cotton or rice fields of South Carolina and the
sugar plantations of Louisiana will ultimately be tilled by free labor,
and Charleston and New Orleans, become marts of legitimate mer
chandise alone, or else the rye-fields and wheat-fields of Massa
chusetts and New York must again be surrendered by their farmers
to slave culture and to the production of slaves, and Boston and
New York become once more markets for trade in the bodies and
eouls of men. It is the failure to apprehend this great truth that
induces so many unsuccessful attempts at final compromises between
the slave and free states, and it is the existence of this great fact
that renders all such pretended compromises, when made, vain and
ephemeral. . . .

At last, the Republican party has appeared. It avows, now, aa
the Republican party of 1800 did, in one word, its faith and its
works, Equal and exact justice to all men. Even when it first
entered the field, only half organized, it struck a blow which only
just failed to secure complete and triumphant victory. In this,
its second campaign, it has already won advantages which render
that triumph now both easy and certain.

The secret of its assured success lies within that very character
istic which, in the mouth of scoffers, constitutes its great and lasting
imbecility and reproach. It lies in the fact that it is a party of one
idea; but that is a noble one an idea that fills and expands all
generous souls; the idea of equality the equality of all men before
human tribunals and human laws, as they all are equal before the
Divine tribunal and Divine laws.

I know, and you know, that a revolution has begun. I know,
and all the world knows, that revolutions never go backward.
Twenty Senators and a hundred Representatives proclaim boldly in
Congress to-day sentiments and opinions and principles of freedom
which hardly so many men, even in this free state, dared to utter in
their own homes twenty years ago. While the Government of the
United States under the conduct of the Democratic party, has been
all that time surrendering one plain and castle after another to
slavery, the people of the United States have been no less steadily
and perseveringly gathering together the forces with which to recover
back again all the fields and all the castles which have been lost,
and to confound and overthrow, by one decisive blow, the betrayers
of the Constitution and freedom forever.

William H. Seward, The Irrepressible Conflict: A Speech Deliv
ered at Rochester, Oct. 25, 1858 (no title page, New York, 1858),
1-7 passim.

This review of the struggle by Senator Benjamin F.
Wade, an Ohio antislavery senator who frequently assailed
slavery, shows how the sentiment in the South had drifted
toward secession :

There is no principle held to-day by this great Republican party
that has not had the sanction of your Government in every depart-

366 Appendix

ment for more than seventy years. You have changed your opinions.
We stand where we used to stand. That is the only difference. . . .
Sir, we stand where Washington stood, where Jefferson stood, where
Madison stood, where Monroe stood. We stand where Adams and
Jackson and even Polk stood. That revered statesman, Henry Clay,
of blessed memory with his dying breath asserted the doctrine that
we hold to-day. . . . As to compromises, I had supposed that we
were all agreed that the day of compromises was at an end. The
most solemn compromises we have ever made have been violated
without a whereas. Since I have had a seat in this body, one of
considerable antiquity, that had stood for more than thirty years,
was swept away from your statute books. . . . We nominated our
candidates for President and Vice-President, and you did the same
for yourselves. The issue was made up and we went to the people
upon it. . . And we beat you upon the plainest and most palpable
issue that ever was presented to the American people, and one that
they understood the best. There is no mistaking it; and now when
we come to the capitol, I tell you that our President and our Vice-
President must be inaugurated and administer the government as all
their predecessors have done. Sir, it would be humiliating and dis
honorable to us if we were to listen to a compromise (only) by
which he who has the verdict of the people in his pocket should make
his way to the Presidential chair. When it comes to that you have
no government. ... If a State secedes, although we will not make
war upon her, we cannot recognize her right to be out of the Union,
and she is not out until she gains the consent of the Union itself;
and the chief magistrate of the nation, be he who he may, will
find under the Constitution of the United States that it is his sworn
duty to execute the law in every part and parcel of this Govern
ment; that he cannot be released from that obligation. . . . There
fore, it will be incumbent on the chief magistrate to proceed to
collect the revenue of ships entering their ports precisely in the
same way and to the same extent that he does now in every other
State of the Union. . . . What must she do? If she is contented
to live in this equivocal state, all would be well perhaps, but she
could not live there. No people in the world could live in that
condition. What will they do? They must take the initiative and
declare war upon the United States; and the moment that they levy
war, force must be met by force; and they must, therefore, hew out
their independence by violence and war. There is no other way
under the Constitution, that I know of whereby a chief magistrate
of any politics could be released from this duty: If this State,
though seceding, should declare war against the United States, I
do not suppose there is a lawyer in this body but what would say
that the act of levying war is treason against the United States.
That is where it results. We might just as well look the matter
right in the face. . . .

I say, sir, I stand by the Union of these States. Washington and
his compatriots fought for that good, old flag. It shall never be
hauled down, but shall be the glory of the Government to which I
belong, as long as my life shall continue. ... It was my protector in

Appendix 367

infancy, and the pride and glory of my riper years; and although
it may be assailed by traitors on every side, by the grace of God,
under its shadow I will die.

Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln: A History (New York, 1890),
Ch. II, pp. 412-414.

These last words of John Brown show exactly how radical
the antislavery movement had become :

I have, may it please the Court, a few words to say.

In the first place, I deny everything but what I have all along
admitted the design on my part to free the slaves. I intended
certainly to have made a clear thing of that matter, as I did last
winter, when I went into Missouri, and there took slaves without
the snapping of a gun on either side, moved them through the
country, and finally left them in Canada. I designed to have done
the same thing again, on a larger scale. That was all I intended.
I never did intend murder, or treason, or the destruction of property,
or to excite or incite slaves to rebellion, or to make insurrection.

I have another objection: and that is, it is unjust that I should
Buffer such a penalty. Had I interfered in the manner which I
admit, and which I admit has been fairly proved, for (I admire the
truthfulness and candor of the greater portion of the witnesses who
have testified in this case) had I so interfered in behalf of the
rich, the powerful, the intelligent, the so-called great, or in behalf
of any of their friends, either father, mother, sister, brother, or wife,
or children, or any of that class, and suffered and sacrificed what I
have in this interference, it would have been all right, and every
man in this Court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward
rather than punishment.

This Court acknowledges, as I suppose, the validity of the Law of
God. I see a book kissed here which I suppose to be the Bible, or at
least, the New Testament. That teaches) me that all things what
soever I would that men should do unto me I should do even so to
them. It teaches me further, to "remember them that are in bonds
as bound with them." I endeavored to act up to that instruction.
I say, I am yet too young to understand that God is any respecter
of persons. I believe that to have interfered as I have done, in behalf
of His despised poor, was not wrong, but right. Now, if it is
deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance
of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood
of my children, and with the blood of millions in this slave country
whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enact
ments I submit; so let it be done.

Let me say one word further:

I feel entirely satisfied with the treatment I have received on my
trial. Considering the circumstances, it has been more generous than
I expected. But I feel no consciousness of guilt. I have stated from
the first what was my intention and what was not. I never had
any design against the life of any person, nor any disposition to com-

368 Appendix

mit treason, or excite slaves to rebel, or make any general insur
rection. I never encouraged any man to do so, but always dis
couraged any idea of that kind.

Let me say, also, a word in regard to the statements made by
some of those connected with me. I hear it has been stated by some
of them that I have induced them to join me. But the contrary is
true. I do not say this to injure them, but as regretting their weak
ness. There is not one of them but joined me of his own accord, and
the greater part at their own expense. A number of them I never
saw, and never had a word or conversation with, till the day they
came to me, and that was for the purpose I have stated.

Now I have done.

James Redpath, The Public Life of Capt. John Brown (Boston,
1860), pp. 340-342.

The Act to Establish a Bureau for the Belief of Freed-
men and Refugees was :

Be it enacted . . . That there is hereby established in the War
Department, to continue during the present war of rebellion, and
for one year thereafter, a bureau of refugees, freedmen, and abandoned
lands, to which shall be committed, as hereinafter provided, the
supervision and management of all abandoned lands, and the control
of all subjects relating to refugees and freedmen from rebel states, or
from any district of country within the territory embraced in the
operations of the army, under such rules and regulations as may be
prescribed by the head of the bureau and approved by the President.
The said bureau shall be under the management and control of a
commissioner to be appointed by the President, by and with the
advice and consent of the Senate, . . . And the commissioner and
all persons appointed under this act, shall, before entering upon
their duties, take oath of office prescribed in ... (the act of July
2, 1862). . . .

Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That the Secretary of War
may direct such issues of provisions, clothing, and fuel, as he may
deem needful for the immediate and temporary shelter and supply
of destitute and suffering refugees and freedmen and their wives
and children, under such rules and regulations as he may direct.

Sec. 3. And be it further enacted, That the President may, by and
with the advice and consent of the Senate, appoint an assistant com
missioner for each of the states declared to be in insurrection, not
exceeding ten in number, who shall, under the direction of the com
missioner, aid in the execution of the provisions of this act. . . .
And any military officer may be detailed and assigned to duty under
this act without increase of pay or allowances. The commission
shall, before the commencement of each regular session of Congress,
make full report of his proceedings with exhibits of the state of hia
accounts to the President, who shall communicate the same to
Congress, and shall also make special reports whenever required to do
so by the President or either house of congress; and the assistant

Appendix 369

commissioners shall make quarterly reports of their proceedings to
the commissioner, and also such other special reports as from time
to time may be required.

Sec. 4. And be it further enacted, That the commissioner, under
the direction of the President, shall have authority to set apart,
for the use of loyal refugees and freedmen, such tracts of land within
the insurrectionary states as shall have been abandoned, or to which
the United States shall have been abandoned, or to which the United
States shall have acquired title by confiscation or sale, or otherwise,
and to every male citizen, whether refugee or freedman, as aforesaid,
there shall be assigned not more than forty acres of such land, and
the person to whom it was so assigned shall be protected in the use
and enjoyment of the land for the term of three years at an annual
rent not exceeding six per centum upon the value of such land, as it
was appraised by the state authorities in the year eighteen hundred
and sixty, for the purpose of taxation, and in case no such appraisal
can be found, then the rental shall be based upon the estimated
value of the land in said year, to be ascertained in such manner as
the commissioner may by regulation prescribe. At the end of said
term, or at any time during said term, the occupants of any parcels
BO assigned may purchase the land and receive such title thereto
as the United States can convey, upon paying therefor the value of
the land, as ascertained and fixed for the purpose of determining
the annual rent aforesaid.

Sec. 5. And be it further enacted, That all acts and parts of acts
inconsistent with the provisions of this act, are hereby repealed.

Approved, March 3, 1865.

Text in U. 8. Statutes at Large, XIII, 507-509. For the pro
ceedings see the House and Senate Journals, 38th Congress, 1st and
2d Sess., and the Cong. Globe. On the work of the bureau see Senate
Exec. Doc. 28, 38th Cong., 2d Sess.; House Exec. Docs. 11, 70, and
120, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.; House Exec. Doc. 7, 39th Cong., 2d Sess.;
House Report 30, 40th Cong., 2d Sess.; House Exec. Doc. 329, ibid.;
House Exec. Doc. 142, 41st Cong., 2d Sess.; House Misc. Doc. 87, 42d
Cong., 3d Sess.; House Exec. Doc. 100, 43d Cong., 1st Sess.; House
Exec. Doc. 144, 44th Cong., 1st Sess. On the condition of Freedmen
see Senate Exec. Doc. 53, and Senate Report 25, 38th Cong., 1st Sess.;
House Exec. Doc. 118, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. Southern State legis
lation respecting freedmen is summarized in McPherson, Recon~
struction, 29-44. See also Cox, Three Decades, chap. 25.

It may be interesting to note Abraham Lincoln s pro
phetic protest against lynch law uttered in 1830. He said :

In the great journal of things happening under the sun, we, the
American people, find our account running under date of the nine
teenth century of the Christian era. We find ourselves in the peace
ful possession of the fairest portion of the earth as regards extent
of territory, fertility of soil, and salubrity of climate. We find

370 Appendix

ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions
conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty,
than any of which the history of former times tells us. We, when
mounting the stage of existence, found ourselves the legal inheritors
of these fundamental blessings. We toiled not in the acquirement or
establishment of them; they are a legacy bequeathed us by a once
hardy, brave, and patriotic, but now lamented and departed, race of
ancestors. . . .

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I
answer, if it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot
come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be
its author. We must live through all time or die by suicide.

I hope I am over wary; but if I am not, there is even now some
thing of ill omen amongst us. I mean the increasing disregard for
law which pervades the country the growing disposition to substi
tute the wild and furious passions in lieu of the sober judgment of
courts, and the worse than savage mobs for the executive ministers
of justice. This disposition is awfully fearful in any community; and
that it now exists in ours, though grating to our feelings to admit,
it would be a violation of truth and an insult to our intelligence to
deny. . . .

Turn then to that horror-striking scene at St. Louis. A single
victim only was sacrificed there. This story is very short, and ia
perhaps the most highly tragic of anything of its length that haa
ever been witnessed in real life. A mulatto man by the name of
Mclntosh was seized in the street, dragged to the suburbs of the
city, chained to a tree, and actually burned to death; and all within
a single hour from the time he had been a freeman attending to hia
own business and at peace with the world.

Such are the effects of mob law, and such are the scenes becoming
more and more frequent in this land so lately famed for love of law
and order, and the stories of which have even now grown too familiar
to attract anything more than an idle remark.

But you are perhaps ready to ask, "What has this to do with the
perpetuation of our political institutions?" I answer, "It has much
to do with it." Its direct consequences are, comparatively speaking,
but a small evil, and much of its danger consists in the pronenesa
of our minds to regard its direct as its only consequences. . . . But
the example in either case was fearful. When men take it in their
heads today to hang gamblers or burn murderers, they should
recollect that in the confusion usually attending such transactions
they will be as likely to hang or burn some one who is neither a
gambler nor a murderer as one who is, and that, acting upon the
example they set, the mob of tomorrow may, and probably will, hang
or burn some of them by the very same mistake. And not only so;
the innocent, those who have ever set their faces against violations
of law in every shape, alike with the guilty fall victims to the
ravages of mob law; and thus it goes on, step by step, till all the
wlls erected for the defense of the persons and property of indi
viduals are trodden down and disregarded. But all this, even, is not
the full extent of the evil. By such examples, by instances of the
perpetrators of such acts going unpunished, the lawless in spirit are

Appendix 371

encouraged to become lawless in practice ; and having been used to no
restraint but dread of punishment, they thus become absolutely
unrestrained. . . . Tims, then, by the operation of this mobocrat spirit
which all must admit is now abroad in the land, the strongest bul
wark of any government, and particularly of those constituted like
ours, may effectually be broken down and destroyed I mean the
attachment of the people. Whenever this effect shall be produced
among us; whenever the vicious portion of (our) population shall
be permitted to gather in bands of hundreds and thousands, and burn
churches, ravage and rob provision stores, throw printing presses into
rivers, shoot editors, and hang and burn obnoxious persons at pleasure
and with impunity, depend upon it, this government cannot last.
By such things the feelings of the best citizens will become more or
less alienated from it, and under such circumstances, men of sufficient
talent and ambition will not be wanting to seize the opportunity,
strike the blow, and overturn that fair fabric which for the last
half century has been the fondest hope of the lovers of freedom
throughout the world. . . .

The question recurs, "How shall we fortify against it?" The
answer is simple. Let every American, every lover of liberty, every
well-wisher to his posterity swear by the blood of the Revolution
never to violate in the least particular the laws of the country,
and never to tolerate their violation by others. As the patriots of
seventy-six did to the support of the Declaration of Independence,
BO to the support of the Constitution and laws let every American
pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honor let every man
remember that to violate the law is to trample on the blood of his
father, and to tear the charter of his own and his children s liberty.
Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother to
the lisping babe that prattles on her lap ; let it be taught in schools,
in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in primers, spelling-
books, and in almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpit, pro
claimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And,
in short, let it become the political religion of the nation; and let
the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay
of all sexes and tongues and colors and conditions, sacrifice un
ceasingly upon its altars. While ever a state of feeling such as this
ehall universally or even very generally prevail throughout the
nation, vain will be every effort, and fruitless every attempt, to
subvert our national freedom. . .
A, Lincoln, Early Speeches (N. Y., 1907), 14-21 passim.

INDEX

Abbott, A. R., a Negro surgeon,
234

Abdy s observation of interbreed
ing, 111

Abolition, 169-181 ; in the South,
182-183; quelled in the South,
187; rise of, in the West, 182-
183

Abolitionists, achievements of,
188-190

Achievements, of Negroes un
usual, 291-292

Achievements of Negroes in free
dom, 280-301

Adams, Henry, a leader of Negro
migrants, 263-264

Adams, John, fear of, 57

Adams, John Quincy, the cham
pion of free* speech, 195-198;
not an antislavery man, 196;
comment of, on the Missouri
Compromise, 343-344; on slav
ery, 353-354

Africa, the Negro in, 1-14; fea
tures of, 2; civilizations of,
2-3 ; slavery in, 3-4 ; peoples of,
5-6; empires in, 6, 7, 8-12; Ne
gro colonists in, 269

African colonization in the Niger
Valley, 167-168

Alabama, peonage in, 270

Albert, A. B., an inventor, 294

Aldridge, Ira, an actor, 148

Alexandria, fugitive slaves in,
226

Alien and Sedition Laws, the
bearing of, on secession, 219

Allen, Richard, founder of the
A. M. E. Church, 77-78

Alton, Illinois, the murder of
Lovejoy at, 215

373

American Antislavery Society, the
constitution of the, 350-351

American Federation of Labor,
the, and the Negro, 334-337

Anthony, Susan B., an abolition
ist, 176

Anti-abolition riots, 191

Antislavery cause during the
American Revolution, 66; in
the South, the decline of, 86-98

Antislavery movement restricted
to the North, 187

Antislavery argument, 52-53

Angolas, the, 25

Appeal, the, of a Southern Ma
tron, 351-352

Appleton, Nathaniel, an advocate
of the rights of man, 55-56

Apprenticeship enforced, 244

Arkansas, the reconstruction of,
241

Arming Negroes, the, advised,
231-232

Artisans, Negro, 115

Ashanti, the state of, 10

Association for the Study of Ne
gro Life and History, the, 341-
342

Attacks on slavery through the
mails, 202

Attacks on slavery milder, 87

Attucks, Crispus, a martyr for
freedom, 58

Augusta, A. T., a Negro surgeon,
234

A Vache colony, the, 227-228

Bacon, Thomas, interest of, in the
instruction of Negroes, 39

Baker, Henry E., opinion of, as
to the Negro invention of the
cotton gin, 109

374

Index

Baldwin, William H., a philan
thropist, 288-289
Ball, Thdmas, a Negro contractor

in Ohio, 139
Ballou, General, a commander of

Negro troops, 318
Baltimore, Lord, the owner of

Irish Nell, 47
Baltimore, colonization in, 162,

163
Bancroft s opinion as to the valor

of Negro soldiers quoted, 65
Banks, General, opinion of, as to

Negro troops, 235
Banks controlled by Negroes, 292
Banneker, Benjamin, the mathe
matician and astronomer, 68,

69-70
Bannister, E. M., a painter, 148,

299

Bantu, the, 4, 15
Baptists, the Emancipating, 56
Barrow, David, an antislavery

man in Kentucky, 90
Bassett, E. D., a reconstruction

officeholder, 252; the education

of, 252
Beard, Andrew J., an inventor,

296
Beers, Captain, the killing of, by

slaves, 36-37

Bell, Phillip A., an editor, 148
Benezet, Anthony, a friend of the

Negro and promoter of Negro

colonization, 56, 154, 155, 165
Bentley, George, a Negro preack-

er, 117

Benton, J. W., an inventor, 296
Berea College, antislavery, 182
Beriah Green, a teacher of Negro

youth at Oneida Institute, 149
Bias, J. G., an advocate of colo
nization, 166

Biased investigators, 339-341
Binding a State, 119-120
Bibb, Henry, a colonizer, 166
Birney, James G., an abolition
editor, 182; press of, destroyed,

184, 192; the employment of

Matilda by, 206
Black, Jeremiah, opinion of, on

granting slaves patents, 111
Black Corsair, the, 28

Blair, Henry, an inventor, 109

Blazing the way on free soil, 138-
152

Blease, Cole, a leader of the poor
whites, 330

Bold slander, a, 323-325

Booker T. Washington idea, the,
274-275

Boston, the rising of slaves in,
36; colonization in, 161

Bowditch, William J., an aboli
tionist, 174

Bowman, Henry A., an inventor,
298

Boyd, Henry, a successful manu
facturer, 139

Braithwaite, W. S., a literary
critic, 304

Bradley, Senator, effort of, to
stop the slave trade, 81

Brannagan, Thomas, the interest
of, in colonization, 155, 165

Brazil, the Negro Numantia in,
31-33

Bremer, Fredrika, an abolition
writer, 185

British, the arming of Negroes
by, 60-62

British American Manual Labor
Institute, the establishment of,
152

British Guiana, sought as a place
for colonization, 165

Brown, George D., a social work
er among Negroes, 286

Brown, John, the martyrdom of,
220; the last words of, 367-368

Brown, William Wells, a Negro
historian, 146-147; an anti-
slavery lecturer, 179

Bruce, B. K., United States Sen
ator, 249; education of, 251
Bryan, Andrew, a pioneer preach
er, 39, 67-68; organizer of an
independent Baptist Church, 77

Buchanan, James, a weak presi
dent, 217-218

Bureau for the Relief of Freed-

men, the, 368-369
Burke, the imprisonment of, 188

Burleigh, Charles C., an aboli
tionist, 176
Burleigh, Harry, a musician, 298

Index

375

Burnaby, Andrew, comment of,
on slavery, 35

Burns, Anthony, the return of,
142

Burr, the imprisonment of, 188

Business, the progress of Negroes
in, 291

Business League, 292

Butler, General B. F., the contra
bands of, 223-224

Cain, Richard H., a member of
Congress, 249 ; education of,
251

Calabar, Eboes, from, 25
Caldwell, Elisha B., a promoter

of colonization, 157, 158
Calhoun, John C., the defense of
slavery by, 197, 199-200; effort
of, to have mails searched, 205,
346-348

California, a free State, 213-214
Canada, progress of Negroes in,

166
Camden, Negro insurrection at,

92
Campbell, Jabez, a churchman,

148
Canaan Academy, the breakup of,

149

Canada, colonization in, 167-168
Canterbury, Ct., the Prudence

Crandall affair in, 175
Capability of Negro officeholders,

252

Capers, Bishop, interest of, in
the religious instruction of Ne
groes, 97

Carnegie, Andrew, a philanthro
pist, 289

Cardozo, F. L., a reconstruction
officeholder, 252 ; the education
of, 252; honorable record of,
253

Gary, Lott, a colonizationist, 158
Cassey, James, opposition of, to

colonization, 162
Cassey, Joseph C., a successful

Negro, 135-136
Cassor, John, a Negro owning

slaves, 127

Catto, E. V. C., a social worker,
286

Chamberlain, quotation from, 6
Channing, W. E., an abolitionist,
185; opinion of, on miscegena
tion, 187 ; interpretation of the
constitution by, 194
Chapman, Professor Charles E.,

quoted, 31

Chapman, Maria Weston, an abo
litionist, 174

Charleston, South Carolina, ref
ugees in, 72-73 ; the free Ne
groes of, 126-127; the prosper
ity of, 129

Chase, S. P., construction of the
constitution by, 194; counsel
in the Van Za ndt case, 206
Chastellux, Marquis de, opinion
of, as to the valor of Negro
soldiers, 63-64
Gheatham, H. P?, a member of

Congress, 249
Chester, T. Morris, honorable

record of, 253

Chicago, race riot in, 328; segre
gation tendencies in, 333
Child, Lydia Maria, an abolition
ist, 174
Choise, Garret, escape of, with a

Negro woman, 46
Christian slavery, 18
Christiana tragedy, the, 141
Churches, Negro, broken up by
the Fugitive Slave Law, 141;
the progress of, 284-285
Cincinnati, the free Negroes in,
138-139, 140; riots in, 98, 140
Cinque, Joseph, the leader of the

rising on L Amistad, 209
Citizenship of Negroes, 120-121
Civilization of Africa, 2-3
Clark, Edward V., a successful

business man, 136
Glarkson, Thomas, a discourse

on, 149

Clay, Cassius M., an antislavery
editor, 182; expulsion of, from
Kentucky, 186

Clay, Henry, interest of, in colo
nization, 157 ; the evasive po
sition of, 198-199; the compro
miser, 213

Clergy, the attitude of, toward
the blacks, 39

376

Index

Coast, Gold, the Dutch traders

on, the, 21

Codman, John, slaves of, put
to death because of insurrec
tion, 37

Coffin, Levi, the promoter of the
Underground Railroad, 143

Collins, Henry M., a successful
business man, 136; an advo
cate of colonization, 166

Colonization, African, 153-168;
impetus to, 154; the difficul
ties of, 160; protest of free Ne
groes against, 161-162; sup
port of, from Negroes, 162-
163; the failure of, 163-164;
other schemes of, 164-168; in
Canada, proposed, 165-166; in
Texas, proposed, 164; in Brit
ish Guiana, 164; in Santo Do
mingo, 164; in the West In
dies, 164-165 ; in Trinidad, 164 ;
revival of by Lincoln, 227 ; re
vival of, by Turner and Mor
gan, 268

Colonizat/ionists not interested in
Africa, 166-167

Columbia, the Negroes at, dis
tributed, 141

Columbus, segregation tendencies
in, 333

Comet, The, freedom of slaves of,
208

Compensated emancipation pro
posed, 221

Complaint, a just, 338

Compromise of 1850, the, 213-214

Compromises on slavery by the
Convention of 1787, 74

Conflict of classes in cities, 332-
333

Conflict of races in cities, 333-
334

Confiscation of property, an act
for, 228-230

Congo, the, 2

Congoes, the, 25

Congress, the action of, on the
memorial from the Quakers and
from the Pennsylvania Aboli
tion Society, 75-77; report of,
adopted, 75-77 ; lack of interest
in the Negro, 76-77

Congress of the Confederation,
silence of, on slavery, 73

Congressional reconstruction, 246-
248

Conservatism of the Negro, 331

Constitution of the American An-
tislavery Society, the, 350-351

Constitutional questions, 236-238

Contrabands, 223-224

Control of white men in recon
structed States, 253

Convention of 1787, the attitude
of, toward slavery, 73-74

Convicts as teachers of Negroes
and whites, 40-41

Cook, John F., a minister and
teacher, 148

Cook, Will Marion, a musician,
298

Corbin, J. C., honorable record of,
253

Cornish, Samuel E., an editor,
148

Coromantees, 24

Corruption explained, 254-255

Cotter, Joseph Seaman, a writer,
303

Cotton, the increase in the pro
duction of, 70, 83

Cotton gin, the, invention of, 79;
the effect of, 80

Craft, William, the escape of, 141

Craft, Ellen, a fugitive, 141

Crandall, Prudence, the imprison
ment of, 97-98, 175

Crandall, Reuben, imprisonment
of, 186

Craney Island, fugitives in, 226

Credit system for the freedmen,
262

Creighton, a Negro slaveholder,
128

Creole Case, the, 210-212

Crime, the decrease in, 284

Crisis of 1850, the, 213

Crisis, The, 277-278

Criticism of Negroes in the army,
322

Crittenden, Gov. John, pardon of
C. Fairbank by, 188

Croft, C., slaves of, burned alive,
37

Index

377

Cromwell, Isaac, escape of, with

a white woman^ 46
Cromwell, J. W., an historian,

301
Crothers, Samuel, an antislavery

leader in the Western Reserve,

184

Crummell, Alexander, a church
man, 148-149
Cuffe, Paul, the interest of, in

colonization, 156, 157
Culture of Negroes, 1-14
Curry, J. L. M., efforts of, for

Negro education, 287

Dabney, Austin, a soldier of dis
tinction during the American
Revolution, 65-66 ; the pension
of, 66; standing of, 66

Dahomey, the State of, 10

Daniel, the fugitive, arrested, 141

Dred Scott decision, 142

Davidson, S. J., an inventor, 294

Davis, Hugh, a white man charged
with lying with a Negro woman,
47

Davis, Joseph, attitude of, to
ward his slaves, 106

Declaration of Independence, the,
and the Negro, 56-57

Decline of the Seaboard Slave
States, 102

De Grasse, John V., a Negro sur
geon, 234

Delaney, Martin R., a coloniza-
tionist, 166, 167, 168; an offi
cer, 234

DeLarge, R. C., a member of Con
gress, 249-250

De Mello, Caetano, expedition of,
sent against Palmares, 32

Des Moines, the training camp
for Negro officers at, 317-318

De Niza, Fray Marcos, Estevane-
cito with, 27

Desalines, child of the rebellion
in Haiti, 72

Dett, Nathaniel, a musician, 298

Diaguillo, the Black Corsair, 28

Dickinson, J. H., an inventor, 294

Dickinson, S. L., an inventor, 294

Dillard, J. H., efforts of, for Ne
gro education, 287-288

Discrimination against Negroes
in the army, 315-323

District of Columbia, emancipa
tion in, urged, 213; slave trade
in, abolished, 214

Dix, General, attitude of, toward
Negro fugitives, 224

Donate, Martin, a Negro slave
holder, 129

Douglas, Stephen A., popular sov
ereignty of, 214

Douglass, Frederick, an opponent
of colonization, 160-167, 168;
an antislavery lecturer, 179-
181 ; an officeholder, 254

Douglass, H. F., a Negro officer,
234

Douglass, William, a churchman,
148

Douglass, William, an inventor,
294

Dowd, Jerome, interest of, in the
study of the Negro, 342

Downing, Thomas, a successful
Negro, 136

Doyle, James, an inventor, 295-
296

DuBois, W. E. B., an educator
and leader, 267 ; opposition of,
to Booker T. Washington, 276-
277 ; a controversial writer, 301

Dubuclet, the excellent record of,
255

Dulin, John, intelligent slave of,
44

Dunbar, Paul Laurence, a poet,
301 ; works of, 301-303

Duprey, Louis, an antislavery
man, 89

Dutch West India Company, 21

Drake, Sir Francis, the plunder
ing of, 21

Drayton, D., the imprisonment of,
188

Dred Scott case, the 216, 217

Dresser, Amos, the punishment
of, 186

Early, of Georgia, the effort of,
in favor of the slave trade, 81-
82

Eboes, 24, 25

Economic condition of the freed-

378

Index

men, 261-263; remedies for,
proposed, 263

Economic problem of the Negro
after the migration, 334

Economic slavery after the reac
tion, 85, 99-123

Education of Negroes in the Eigh
teenth Century, 40-42, 43, 44;
prohibition of, in the South,
96; of slaves, 108-109; trial of,
in solving the Negro problem,
266

Educational advantages of Ne
gro reconstruction officeholders,
251-252

Efforts for economic betterment
made by Negroes themselves,
337-338

Egypt and the North, 6, 7, 8, 11

Ellicott, George, the friend of
Benjamin Banneker, 69-70

Elliott, Robert B., a member of
Congress, 251 ; education of,
251

Ellis, William, a Negro surgeon,
234

Ellsworth, Oliver, attitude of, to
ward slavery, 73

Emancipation by enlistment dur
ing the Revolutionary War, 62-
63 ; by statute, 66-67 ; the check
of, 71; proclamation of , by Fre
mont during the Civil War,
228 ; the same by Hunter, 229 ;
by Lincoln, 230-231, 237-238

Emancipation Proclamation, the,
the issuance of, 230-231; the
constitutional aspect of, 237-
238

Emlen Institute, 139

Encomium, The, freedom of slaves
of, 208

Enfranchisement of Negroes, the
question of, 256

England, slavery in, 38

Enlightenment of slaves, 108-109

Enterprise, The, the freedom of
the slaves of, 208

Environment, the effect of, 4-5

Equality before the law advo
cated by Sumner, 356-358

Estevanecito, explorations of, 27-
28

Ethiopia, the rise, of, 6, 7, 8
Europe, African slaves in, 18, 19
Evans, Henry, a preacher, 117
Exceptional slaves, 38-39
Explorers, Negroes with, 27-28
Exodus of 1879, the, 263-266

Fairbank, Calvin, the imprison
ment of, 188

Fauset, Jessie R., a writer, 303
Featherstonaugh, comment of, on

the internal slave trade, 99-100
Fee, John G,, an abolitionist, the

founder of Berea College, 182
Ferdinand, King, and the slave

trade, 19
Fessenden, W. P., reconstruction

ideas of, 242

Fighter, the Negro as, a, 325
Finding a way of escape, 260-280
Fifteenth Amendment, 238
Finley, Robert, a promoter of

colonization, 157
First Regiment Infantry Corps

d Afrique, 232
First Regiment of Louisiana

Heavy Artillery, 232
First Regiment of Louisiana Na
tive Guards, 232
Florida, peonage in, 270
Follen, Eliza Lee, an abolition

poet, 174
Force bills, the enactment of,

256-258
Force, the use of, to check the

exodus of Negroes, 265
Forten, James, an inventor, 109;

a successful business man, 136;

opposition of, to colonization,

162
Fortress Monroe, fugitive slaves

at, 226
Foss, Andrew T., an abolitionist,

176-177
Foster, Abby Kelly, an antislav-

ery lecturer, 175-176
Foster, Stephen, an abolitionist,

176

Fothergill, interest of, in coloni
zation, 154-155

Fourteenth Amendment, 238, 244
Francis, Henry, a teacher and

minister, 68-69

Index

379

Franklin, Benjamin, interest of,
in emancipation, 74-75

Fraternal organizations, 292

Fray, Marcos de Niza, Estevane-
cito with, 27

Free Negroes, 124-137; expulsion
of, from the South, 95-06; re
strictions on, 95-96 ; the status
of, 126-127; the progress of,
127; owners of slaves, 127-128;
the wealth of, 128-129; rela
tions with slaves, 133-134; a
disturbing factor, 134-135; the
progress of, 135; opposition of,
to colonization, 160-163

Freedmen among the Latins, 26-
27; in Guatemala, 28; mal
treatment of, in the South, 244

Freedmen s Bureau, the, 245-246,
368-369

Freedom and the Negro during
the American Revolution, 58

Fremont, John.C., the emancipa
tory order of, 228

French generals, the praise of,
for Negro soldiers, 321-322

French traders of the Senegal, 21

Fugitive, the, 112-113, 114, 142-
143 ; reactionary measures deal
ing with, 202; in the army
camps, 223-227; Lincoln s pol
icy with respect to, 225; sent
North, 226-227

Fugitive Slave Law, the effect of,
141 ; the law of 1850, 213-214

Fuller, Meta V. W., a sculptor,
298

Gaboons, 24

Gabriels Insurrection, 92

Gag rule, the adoption of, 197-
198

Gage, Sir Thomas, quotation
from, concerning the Black
Corsair, 28-29 ; observer of ex
ceptional slaves and Negroes,
39

Gambia, the megaliths of, 8 ;
English traders in, 21 ; Ne
groes from, 24

Garnett, Henry H.. a churchman
and educator, 148-149

Garrett, Thomas, an abolitionist,
174

Garrison, William Lloyd, sup
posed connection with Nat
Turner, 94; humiliation and
imprisonment of, 191; the an-
tislavery efforts of, 169, 170,
172; comment of, on the Con
stitution, 194; reward offered
for, 203; extracts from The
Liberator of, 348-350

Gaston, William, an antislavery
man in North Carolina, 88

Gay, Sydney Howard, an aboli
tionist, 174

George, James, an intelligent
slave of, 44

George III and the slave trade,
58

Georgia, peonage in, 270

Germans, influence of, 89 ; com
petition of, with Negro labor
ers, 97-98, 130

Gerry, Elbridge, attitude of, to
ward slavery, 73

Ghana, the kingdom of, 9

Gibbs, M. W., honorable record
of, 253

Giddings, Joshua R., an antislav
ery congressman, 200 ; resolu
tions of, on the mutiny of the
Creole slaves, 211-212; the cen
sure of, 211; the resignation
of, 211; the return of, to Con
gress, 212; remarks of, on
slavery, 355-356, 358-359

Godkin, E. L., comment of, on
the internal slave trade, 101-
102

Goodell, William, report of, on
miscegenation, 112; an aboli
tionist, 177

Goodloe, Daniel R., position of
with reference to teaching Ne
groes, 06; a southern aboli
tionist, 182

Goodrich, William, a business
man, 136

Goodwyn, Morgan, appeal of, in
behalf of slaves, 39

Gordon, Robert, a successful Ne
gro coal-dealer in Cincinnati,
139-140

380

Index

Gordon, William, interest of, in
freedom, 54

Gorsuch, the, killing of, 141

Goybet, General, praise of, for
Negro soldiers, 321-322

Gradual emancipation becoming
popular, 87-88

Grant, U. S., attitude of, toward
fugitive slaves, 224-225; the
use of Negroes in the army by,
230; report of, on the South,
242-243

Greeks and the Negro, 5, 6

Green, Augustus R., an advocate
of colonization, 166

Green, Samuel, imprisonment of,
187

Greene, Anna, a white woman es
caping with a Negro man, 46

Greene, Colonel, defended by Ne
gro soldiers, 65

Greene, General, interest of, in
the enlistment and freedom of
the Negroes, 61 ; Negro sol
diers under, during the Rev
olutionary War, 65

Greener, R. T., a reconstruction
officeholder, 252; the educa
tion of, 252

Greer, Allan J., an officer arrayed
against Negroes, 320 ; letter of,
to Senator McKellar, 321

Grimke, A. H., a protagonist in
the struggle for social justice,
278

Grimke sisters, abolitionists, 177

Guatemala, a Negro freedman in,
28; maroons in, 29-30

Guinea, the Gulf of, 5

Guinea Coast, slave trade on, 21

Haiti, Negro insurrection in, 72-
73; colonization in, 167, 168

Hale, John P., an antislavery
senator, 193

Hale, Joseph, slave of, able to
read and write, 42

Hall, Basil, comment of, on the
internal slave trade, 100

Halleck, General, attitude of, to
ward Negro fugitives, 224

Hamilton, Alexander, interest of,

in the freedom of the Negro,
61
Hamlet, the fugitive, arrested,

141
Hammon, Jupiter, a writer of

verse, 301

Hampton, fugitive slaves, in, 226
Hampton Institute, the progress

of, 288-289

Hancock, John, opposition of, to
the enlistment of Negro troops,
59

Haralson, Jere, a member of Con
gress, 249

Harper, Chancellor, position of,
on the teaching of Negroes,
96-97
Harper, Frances E. W., a writer

of verse, 301
Harper, William A., a painter,

299
Hardships of Negroes in the

North, 130

Harlan, Robert, a successful Ne
gro in Ohio, 139

Harris, Dr., opinion of, as to the
valor of Negro soldiers in the
American Revolution, 65
Hart, A. B., quoted, 171
Hartford, Connecticut, coloniza
tion in, 162

Hausa, the state of, 9, 10
Haughtiness of the aristocratic

class, 255-256
Hawkins, Sir John, exploits of,

Hayes, R. B., the withdrawal of
the Federal troops by, 258-259
Haynes, George E., head of the
Bureau of Negro Economics in
the Department of Labor, 316
Haynes, Lemuel, a patriot and
soldier of the American Revo
lution, 58, 63
Hayward, Colonel, a commander

of Negro troops, 318
Henson, Josiah, comment of, on
the internal slave trade, 100-
101 ; a promoter of the Under
ground Railroad, 143 ; the pro
totype of Uncle Tom s Cabin,
151-152

Index

381

Henry, Patrick, an advocate of

freedom, 57
Hermosa, The, freedom of the

slaves of, 208

Higher pursuits, slaves in, 44-45
Higginson, T. W., a leader of Ne

gro troops, 235
[ffl,

Hill, of Chillicothe, a successful
Negro, 138

Hill, L. P., a writer, 303

Hillsboro, Negro insurrection at,
92

Hilyer, A. F., an inventor, 294

Hispaniola, slave traders, 20

Hoffman, Frederick L., interest
of, in the study of the Negro,
342

Hollie, Sallie, an abolitionist, 177

Holly, J. T., a colonizationist,
166, 167, 168; in Haiti, 168

Homes of Negroes, improvements
in, 287

Hooter, H. E., an inventor, 296

Hopkins, Samuel, interest of, in
freedom, 54

Hovey, Charles F., an abolition
merchant, 174

Howard, O. 0., head of the Freed-
men s Bureau, 245-246; foun
der of Howard University, 246,
288

Howard University, the estab
lishment of, 246

Howells, W. D., a friend of Dun-
bar, 301

Hunter, Alexander, the purchase
of a slave by, 127

Hunter, Major General, the eman
cipatory order of, 229; Ne
groes armed by, 232

Humphries, Solomon, a wealthy
Negro, 129

Hunton, William A., first Negro
International Young Men s
Christian Association Secre
tary, 286

Hyman, John A., a member of
Congress, 249

Impending Crisis, The, 216-217
Indianapolis, segregation tenden
cies in, 333

Industrial revolution and the re
action, 79-80

Industrial Schools, Negro, the
progress of, 288-289

Inferiority of races, question of,
339-341

Institutions of learning founded,
266

Insurance companies controlled
by Negroes, 292

Insult to Negro army officers,
322-323

Insurrection of the Negroes dur
ing the early periods in the
colonies, 36-37; in the West
Indies, 72-73; in the United
States, 92-94

Intellectual development, 41-42,
43-44

Interbreeding, 133

Interest, differing, of the sections,
118-119

Internal improvements, the ques
tion of, 123

Internal slave trade, 99-102

International entanglements, 208-
212

Interstate slave trade, 104 ; the
regulation of, 103

Intimidation of Negroes in the
South, 244

Inventions of Negroes, 109, 110,
111, 293; the difficulties of,
298

Investigation of social problems
a necessity, 341

Investigators, biased, 339-340

Irish Nell, marriage of, to a Ne

gro slave, 47
Irish in

the North, competition
of, with Negro laborers, 97-98,
130

Irrepressible Conflict, The, of
William H. Seward, 363-365

Isabella, Queen, attitude of, to
ward slavery, 19

Jackson, Benjamin F., an inven
tor, 294

Jackson, Francis, an abolitionist,
174

Jackson, May Howard, a sculp
tor, 299

382

Index

Jacobs, Governor R. T., pardon of
Fairbanks, by, 88

Jamaica, Francis Williams, the
scholar, in, 29 ; agents from,
in quest of Negro immigrants,
164-165

James, David, an illegitimate mu
latto bound out, 48

Jameson, J. F., interest of, in the
study of the Negro, 342

Jay, William, the enemy of colo
nization, 96-97 ; thought of, on
miscegenation, 187 ; opinion of,
as to the Constitution, 194

Jefferson, Thomas, an opponent
of slavery, 57-58; message to
Congress concerning, 81 ; his
fear of the evil, 90 ; interest
of, in colonization, 155; corre
spondence of, with Banneker,
70

Jenkins, David, a successful Ne
gro in Ohio, 138

Jenne, the state of, 10

Jerry, the fugitive arrested in
Syracuse, 141

Johnson, Andrew, acceptance of
Lincoln s reconstruction plan
by, 241-242

Johnson, Georgia Douglas, a
poet, 303

Johnson, James Weldon, a writer,
303

Johnson, Oliver, an abolitionist,
177

Johnson, William H., an inven
tor, 296

Johnson, a hero of the World
War, 325

Johnson, General, the attitude of,
toward fugitive slaves, 224

Jones, C. C., interest of, in the

instruction of Negroes, 97
Judson, Andrew T., the decision
of, in the Amistad Case, 209

Kansas-Nebraska question, 214
Kansas Colored Volunteers, 232
Keith, George, interest of, in the

instruction of Negroes, 39; in

colonization, 154
Kemble, Frances, an antislavery

writer, 185

Kench, Thomas, interest of, in

the enlistment of Negroes, 63
Kentucky, failure of, to prohibit

the teaching of Negroes, 96
Key, Francis Scott, a promoter

of colonization, 157
Koch, Bernard, the agent of the

colonizationists of the Civil

War period, 227-228; governor

of the A Vache colony, 227-

228
Kreamer, Henry, an inventor,

294
Ku Klux Klan, the operations of,

256-258, 269 ; recrudescence of,

325-326

Labor a factor in the Negro sit
uation, 306-307
Loyalty of Negroes, 313, 314,

316-317

Lafayette, Marquis de, opinion of
as to the valor of Negro sol
diers, 65
Lafon, Thorny, a wealthy Negro,

127
Lago, William, the indictment of,

in Kentucky, 203
Lambert, William, a colonization-

ist, 166
L Amistad, the freedom of the

slaves of, 209
Lane, Lunsford, an antislavery

lecturer, 176, 179
Lane Theological Seminary, anti-
slavery, 184

Langston, J. M., a member of
Congress, 249; the education
of, 251

Latimer Case, the, 206-207
Last words of John Brown, 367-

368
Latins, the enlightenment of

slaves among, 26
Latrobe, J. H. B., a factor in

colonization, 159
Laurens, Henry, the proposal of,
for enlisting and freeing Ne
groes, 58, 62
Law, Josiah, interest of, in the

instruction of Negroes, 97
Lawrence, Samuel, rescue of, by
Negroes, 58

Index

383

Lay, Benjamin, attack of, on
slavery, 53-54

Leadership, trained, 200

Leavitt, Joshua, an abolitionist,
171

Lecky s opinion of the valor of
Negro soldiers mentioned, 65

Lecturers, antislavery, 175-177

Lee, Joseph, an inventor, 206

Le Jeune, Paul, a missionary, 39

Leonard, James, an intelligent
slave of, 44

Le Petit, a missionary, 39

Lewis, Edmonia, the artist, 148

Lewis, John W., a Negro busi
ness man, 202

Liberator, The, the influence of,
170, 171; beginnings of the,
348-350

Liberia, the exodus of Negroes
to, 128

Liele, George, a pioneer preacher,
68

Lincoln, Abraham, the slavery
issue by, 215, 216, 221, 228;
interest of in compensated
emancipation, 221 ; policy of, in
dealing with fugitive slaves,
225; interest of, in freedmen,
227,240; emancipation by, 229-
230; powers of, 238-230; plan
of, for reconstruction, 239-240 ;
comment of, on lynching, 370-
371

Long, Jefferson F., a member of
Congress, 249

Longfellow, H. W., antislavery
writings of, 185

Louisiana, reconstruction of, 241

Louisiana Purchase, the, and
slavery, 78-70

L Ouverture, Toussaint, leader of
the insurrection in Haiti, 72

Lovejoy, Elijah P., the murder
of, 102, 215

Lowden, Fred J., an inventor, 206

Lowell, J. R., the antislavery
writings of, 185

Lundy, Benjamin, an abolition
ist, 182

Lundy, Benjamin, a gradual
emancipationist, 89; a coloni-
zationist, 15C

Lynch, John R., a member of
Congress, 249; the education
of, 251

Lynching on the increase, 261 ; in
Washington, 327-328; remarks
of Lincoln on, 369, 371

McCook, General, attitude of, to
ward the fugitive slaves, 224

McCoy, Elijah J., an inventor,
297

McCrummell, James, the opposi
tion to colonization, 162

McHenry, James, a friend of
Benjamin Banneker, 70

McKellar, Senator K. D., the let
ter of Allan J. Greer to, 320

McKim, an agent of the Under
ground Railroad, 177

Madison, James, suggestion as to
emancipation, 62

Madison, James, the complaint
of the sister of, as to miscege
nation, 111-112

Madison, W. G., an inventor, 296

Mahan, Asa, an antislavery stu
dent at Lane Seminary, 184:
one of the founders of Oberlin
College, 184; indictment of, in
Kentucky, 203

Mail, the use of, in reaching Ne
groes, 203

Major, John, the murder of, by
slaves, 36

Mansfield, Lord, the Somerset de
cision of, 38

Manumission after the French
and Indian War, 54-55; in the
Middle States, 54, 55

March, Charles, a colonizationist,
157

Marcy, Governor, attitude of, to
ward the fugitive, 203

Maroons, the, 30-31 ; in Guate
mala, 29-30

Martin, Samuel, a Negro slave
holder, 128

Martin, Asa, estimate of the ex
tent of the internal slave trade
by, 102

Martineau, Harriet, a case of
miscegenation observed by, 112

384

Index

Maryland, failure of, to prohibit

the teaching of Negroes, 96
Maryland, miscegenation in, 46-

47; free Negroes sold in, 130
Maryville College, antislavery,

182
Mason, George, an advocate of

freedom, 58

Massachusetts, Negroes of, leave
for Canada, 141; the uprising
of slaves in, 36; protest of,
against the enlistment of Ne
groes in the American Revolu
tion, 58

Massacres of Negroes, 261
Matilda, the question as to the

freedom of, 206
Matthews, W. D., a Negro officer,

234

Matzeliger, Jan E., a noted Ne
gro inventor, 293; results from
patent of, 293-294
May, Thomas, an intelligent slave

of, 42
May, Samuel, Jr., an abolitionist,

174
May, Samuel J., an abolitionist,

174, 175
Measurements, psychological, 340-

341

Mechanics, Negro, 115
Mecklin, John M., interest of, in

the study of the Negro, 342
Mediterranean world, Negroes in,

6, 7, 8

Melle, the kingdom of, 9-10
Memphis, fugitive slaves in, 226
Menial service of Negroes in the

North, 274

Mendez, exploits of, 21
Mercer County, Ohio, the Negroes

in, 139
Mercer, Charles Fenton, interest

of, in colonization, 157
Merrick, John, a business man,

292

Methodists, opposition of, to slav
ery, 56

Metoyer, Marie, a negro slave
holder, 129

Mexico, the organization of ter
ritory acquired from, 213; Ne
gro colonists in, 269

Middle States, slavery in, 35-36;
Manumission in, 54

Miflin, Ann, interest of, in colo
nization, 155-156

Migration of the Negroes to the
North, 265-266, 306-310; causes
of, 309-310

Military districts in the South
247

Mild attack on slavery, 87

Miller, Kelly, an educator, 267
301

Miller, Matthew, opinion of, as
to Negro troops, 236

Miller, Thomas E., a member of
Congress, 251

Milligan Case, the, 236

Mills, Elijah J., a promoter of
colonization, 157

Mills, Samuel J., a colonization-
ist, 157

Miner, Myrtilla, the work of, 144

Minor, Patrick A., a Negro offi
cer, 234

Miscegenation of the whites and
blacks, 45-50, 133; danger of,
50; cases of, 111-112

Mississippi, peonage in, 270

Missouri Compromise, 120-121;
comment on, by J. Q. Adams,
343-344; remarks of John Ser
geant on, 344-346

Mobile, Alabama, the Negroes of,
protected by the Louisiana Pur
chase Treaty, 78-79

Mohammed Askia, 11

Mohammedans in Africa, 8, 9, 10,
11, 12, 15, 16, 17

Molson, Richard, the escape of
the slave of, with a white
woman, 46

Montgomery, Benjamin T., an in
ventor, 111

Montgomery, Isaiah T., experi
ences of, as a slave, 106; a
business man, 292

Monroe, President, interest of, in

colonization, 159
Moore, William, intelligent slave

of, 42

Morgan, John, an antislavery
student at Lane Seminary,

Index

385

184; one of the founders of

Oberlin College, 184
Morgan, Senator, interest of, in

colonization, 268-269
Morris, Thomas, an antislavery

congressman, 193
Moton, R. R., the head of Tuske-

gee, 291
Mott, Lucretia, an abolitionist,

177

Mott, James, an abolitionist, 177
Mound Bayou, the home of a for
mer slave, 106
Mulattoes, 133
Mulber, Luke, a successful Negro

in Ohio, 138

Murray, George W., a member of
Congress, 251; an inventor, 294
Mustees, 133

Nagoes, 24

Nash, Charles E., a member of
Congress, 249

National Association for the Ad
vancement of Colored People,
the work of the, 277-278

National Association of Funeral
Directors, 292

National Negro Bankers Asso
ciation, 292

National Negro Retail Merchants
Association, 292

Negro, the, enslaved, 15-34; the
rights of man and the, 51-52;
status of, reduced, 86, 87; in
the Civil War, 221-238; in the
World War, 305-328; the, and
social justice, 328-342

Negro contrabands, the record of,
230

Negro Churches, 117

Negro preachers, 117

Negro soldiers, enlisted in Vir
ginia, 61 ; in Rhode Island, 62-
63; in New York, 63; in New
Hampshire, 63; in Maryland,
63; opinions as to service of,
63-65

Negro units proposed for the
American Revolutionary forces,
58-59; protest against, 58-59;
decision against, 59; fear of,
60-61 ; armed by British, 60-62

Negroes as refugees during the
Civil War, 223-230; loyal to
the United States, 313-314

Nell, Irish, marriage of, to a
slave, 47

Nell, William C., a Negro his
torian, 145-146

Newberne, Negro insurrection at,
92-93

New England, slavery in, 35

New England and secession, 219

New Orleans, Haitian refugees in,
72-73

New York City, the Negro riot
in, 37, 98 ; miscegenation in,
49; colonization in, 161, 162,
163 ; antislavery society in,
171-172; anti-abolition move
ment in, 191; the fugitive ques
tion in, 203

New York Fifteenth, 318

Niger, the, 2, 8; Martin R. De-
laney in the valley of, 167-168

Nile, the, 2, 6, 7

Niles, Hezekiah, a promoter of
colonization, 157

Niles, Nathaniel, interest of, in
freedom, 54

Ninety-second Division, of Negro
soldiers, 318

Norfolk, Haitian refugees at, 72

North, reaction against the Ne
gro in, 76-77 ; the free Negroes
in, 129-137; fugitives in, 226-
227; the migration of Negroes
to, 271-272, 306-310; the ad
vantages of Negroes in, 307,
308; troubles of Negroes in,
310-311; the recent situation
in, 331

North Carolina, miscegenation
in, 48-49; Negro voters in, 67;
peonage in, 270
Numantia, the Negro, 31-33

Oberlin College, the establish
ment of, 184

Officers, Negro, the demand for,
316-317 ; discrimination against,
317-325; training of, at Des
Moines, 317-318; praised by
French, 321-322

386

Index

Ogden, Robert C., a philanthro
pist, 289

O Hara, James E., a member of
Congress, 249 ; the education
of, 251

Ohio, the question of fugitives
in, 203; anti-Negro laws of,
206

Opposition to slavery, 216-217

Oppression a cause of migration,
310

Ordinance of 1787, the emancipa
tory clause of, 66, 73, 120

Ordingsell, Anthony, the sale of
a slave by, 127

Otis, James, an advocate of free
dom, 57

Outcast, the free Negro an, 132-
133

Paine, L. W., the imprisonment
of, 188

Palmares, the Negro Numantia,
31-33; the destruction of, 33

Palmyra, riot at, 98

Parker, John T., an inventor, 296

Pawpaws, 24

Paxton, John D., the attack of,
on slavery, 90

Payne, Daniel A., a churchman,
148

Pelham, Robert A., an inventor,
294

Penn, William, the owner of
slaves, 35

Pennington, J. W. C., a church
man, 149-150

Pennsylvania, miscegenation in,
49-50; anti-abolition riots in,
191-192

Pennsylvania Society for the
Abolition of Slavery, memorial
of, to Congress, 75; action
taken thereon, 75-77

Peonage, 270-271

Pernambuco and Palmares, 31-33

Perry, Heman, a business man,
292

Personal liberty laws, 112-113,
205-206

Phelps, J. W., the arming of Ne
groes, undertaken by, 232

Philadelphia, miscegenation in,
49 ; manumission promoted in,
54; riot in, 98; progress, of
free Negroes in, 136; segrega
tion tendencies in, 333

Philanthropist, The, 184

Phillips, Wendell, an antislavery
orator, 172, 174; attitude of,
toward the Constitution, 216

Physicians, Negro, 285

Pick ens, William, an orator, 267,
301

Pickering, J. L., an inventor, 296

Pinchback, P. B. S., a reconstruc
tion officeholder, 252; the edu
cation of, 252; record of, 254

Piracy, 21

Pittsburg, riot in, 98; segrega
tion tendencies in, 333

Plantation system as a result
from the industrial revolution,
79-80, 105, 106, 107

Platt, William, a successful free
Negro, 135

Politics and slavery in the South,
83

Politicians, Negro, leaving the
South, 272

Polk, Bishop, interest of, in the
instruction of Negroes, 97

Popular sovereignty, 214

Portsmouth, Ohio, riot at, 98,
140 ; fugitive slaves in, 226

Port Royal, South Carolina, fugi
tive slaves in, 226

Portugal, slaves in, 1

Poore, Salem, exploits of, 58

Potomac, the bravery of Negroes
along, 236

Powell, William, a Negro sur
geon, 234

Prejudice a factor in the South,
254; in the army, 323

Preparation of slaves for eman
cipation, 67-68

Presbyterians, opposition of, to
slavery, 56

Presley, J., a successful Negro in
Ohio, 139

Price, J. C., an orator and edu
cator, 266

Prigg Case, the, 206

Index

387

Prince Henry, explorations of, 19
Privileges of free Negroes, 131-

132

Professions, Negroes in, 283-284
Progress of the Negro race, statis
tics on, 280-283 ; of the Church,
284-285
Promoters of colonization, 154-

155
Property of Negroes, the worth

of, 292

Proslavery argument, 52-53
Proslayery victory in the mild
prohibition of the slave trade,
82

Protest, further, 182-194
Proverbs, African, 12-14
Punishment of slaves, 108
Puritans, attitude of, toward

slavery, 52

Pursuits, higher, slaves in, 44-45
Purvis, Robert, opposition of, to

colonization, 162
Purvis, Charles B., a Negro sur
geon, 234
Purvis, W. B., an inventor, 294

Quakers, attitude of, toward slav
ery, 52, 54; memorial of, to
Congress, 74, 75, 76; opposi
tion of, to slavery continued,
88 ; interest of, in colonization,
154-155

Quincy, Edmund, an abolitionist,
174

Quinn, William P., a minister,
148

Races in Africa, 1-14

Race riot in Washington, 326-
328

Radical leaders of poor whites,
330

Rainey, J. H., a member of Con
gress, 249

Randolph, John, the attitude of,
toward the slave trade, 82;
comment of, on slavery, 90; on
colonization, 157

Rankin, John, an antislavery
leader in the Western Reserve,
184; comment of, on miscege
nation, 187

Ransier, Alonzo J., a member of
Congress, 251

Rapier, James T., a member of
Congress, 249; the education
of, 251

Rapier, John, a Negro surgeon,
234

Rappahannock River, the rising
of slaves oil, 36

Ray, Charles B., a churchman,
148 ; letter of, Gerrit Smitli to,
186

Ray, Robert, opposition of, to
colonization, 162

Raymond, Daniel, the opposition
of, to slavery, 90

Reaction against the Negro, 71-
85; in the North, 97-98

Reason, Charles L., a scholar, 148

Rebellion of the Negroes in the
West Indies, 72-73

Reconstruction of the Southern
States, 239-259; various theo
ries about, 242; the plan of
Congress for, 246-248; the un
doing of, 259

Redpath, James, a colonization-
ist, 168

Reed, William N., a Negro offi
cer, 233-234

Refugees, Haitian, in United
States, 72-73; influence of, 92-
93

Religious bodies opposed to slav-
ery, 51-52

Religious freedom, the bearing
of, on the emancipation of the
Negroes, 67-68

Removal of a slave to a free
State, the effect of, 205; in
Pennsylvania, 205; in Massa
chusetts, 205

Remond, Charles Lenox, an an
tislavery lecturer, 178-179, 180

Rent system for the freedmen,
262

Republican Party, the organiza
tion of, 217

Relations of slaves and free Ne
groes, 133-134

Religious instruction limited, 116-
118

388

Index

Restored South, 268; the cruelty

of, 268
Resignation of Negroes to fate,

267
Restrictions on manumissions,

128; on free Negroes, 130-131
Return of Negroes to the South,

130

Return of fugitives, the constitu
tional question of, 200-202
Revels, Hiram R., a member of
the United States Senate, 249;
the education of, 251
Rhett, of South Carolina, in the

defense of slavery, 198
Ricard, Cyprian, a wealthy Ne
gro, 129
Richardson, Richard, the sale of

a slave by, 127
Richards, Benjamin, a business

man, 136
Richey, Charles V., an inventor,

294
Riddell, W. R., interest of, in the

study of the Negro, 342
Right of petition denied, 195-198
Rights of man and the Negro,

55-56
Rillieux, Norbert, an inventor,

109-110

Riots of Negroes with Irish and
Germans in the North, 98, 140-
141

Rise, the, of the poor whites, 330
Roberts, a hero of the World

War, 325

Robinson, E. A., an inventor, 298
Rockefeller, John D., a philan
thropist, 298

Rockefeller, John D., Jr., inter
est of, in the study of the Ne
gro, 342
Rogers, H. H., a philanthropist,

289
Rogers, N. P., an abolitionist,

177

Roques, Charles, a Negro slave
holder, 129

Rosenwald, Julius, a philanthro
pist, 289; interest of, in the
study of the Negro, 342
Royal African Company, 21

Ruffner, effort of, for Negro edu
cator, 288

Ruggles, David, a leader in the
crisis, 149

Rush of Negroes to cities, the,
272, 273

Russwurm, John B., the first Ne
gro college graduate in the
United States, 144-145; a colo-
nizationist, 159, 160

Rutherford, S. W., a Negro busi
ness man, 292

Rutledge, Governor, a Negro slave
of, distinguished by his valor,
65

Salem, Peter, the killing of Ma
jor Pitcairn by, 58
Sandiford, Ralph, attack of, on

slavery, 53
Sandoval, Alphonso, protest of,

39
Sandy Lake, the settlement of,

broken up, 141

Santo Domingo, Negro insurrec
tion in, 72; sought as a place
for colonization, 165

Savannah, Georgia, the uprising
of slaves at, 36

Schools, Negro, the progress of
288-289

Schurz, Carl, report of, on the
South, 242-243

Scotch-Irish, influence of, 89

Scott, Emmett J., Special Assis
tant to the Secretary of War,
316, 318

Scott, George, the self-assertion
of the slaves of, 36

Scott, Henry, a successful Negro,
135-136

Scott, William E., a painter, 299

Seamen Acts of South Carolina,
202

Searching the mails, 205

Secession undertaken, 217. 218,
219-220

Secret Information concerning
Black American Troops, 323-
324

Senegal, traders on, 21 ; coloniza
tion on the, 159

Segregation, the results of, 338

Index

389

Sergeant, John, remarks of, on
the Missouri Compromise, 344-
346

Servants indentured, 17, 18

Service of Negro troops, 234-236

Settlements of Negroes broken
up, 140-141

Sevilla, slaves in, 19

Seward, W. H., attitude of, to
ward the fugitive, 202; an an-
tislavery leader in Congress,
216; counsel in the John Van
Zandt case, 206; Higher Law
than the Constitution of, 359-
361; Irrepressible Conflict of,
363-365

Shadrach, the fugitive, arrested,
141

Sharp, Granville, attorney in the
Somerset case, 38; interest of,
in colonization, 155

Shaw, John, refusal of, to grant
a writ for the freedom of a
fugitive, 206

Shaw, R. G., a commander of Ne
gro troops, 235

Shellabarger, reconstruction plan,
of, 242

Sherbro, the figures of, 8, 9

Singleton, Benjamin, a leader of
Negro migrants, 264

Simms, Thomas, the fugitive ar
rested, 142

Simpson, William H., a painter,
148

Skilled labor, 281-282

Slade, William, an antislavery
congressman, 193

Slander, a bold, 323-325

Slavebreeding, 102

Slave trade, 16, 17; the horrors
of, 22, 24; in the South, 72;
efforts to stop the, 80-82

Slave trading corporations, 21

Slavery, ancient, 15; Mohamme
dan, 15, 16, 17; Christian, 18;
European, 18, 19; the intro
duction of, in America, 21 ; in
its mild form, 34-50; slavery
in the North, 35; in New Eng
land, 35 ; in the Middle States,
35-36; slavery in England, 38;
in the eighteenth century, 40;

early objections to, 51-52; as
affected by the Louisiana Pur
chase Treaty, 78-79; the effect
of, on the South, 117-118; with
respect to the tariff, 121-122:
attacked as an evil, 170; with
respect to the Constitution,
195; in politics, 217; the de
fense of, by J. C. Calhoun, 346-
348; the comment of J. Q.
Adams on, 353-354 ; remarks of
J. R. Giddings on, 355-356,
358-359; comment of A. Lin
coln on, 361-362; remarks of
B. F. Wade on, 365-367

Slavers, 22

Slaves, brought to the West In
dies, 23; source of, 24-25;
hardships of, 25-26; the en
lightenment of, among the Lat
ins, 26 ; able to read and
write, 42-43; well-dressed, 43;
slaves in good circumstances,
44; slaves in higher pursuits,
44-45; relation with poor
whites, 45-46 ; sold South, 103-
104, 105; control of, 106; the
care of, 107; the punishment
of, 108; in towns, 114-115; re
lations of, with free Negroes,
133-134

Smalls, Robert, a member of Con
gress, 251

Smart, Brinay, an inventor, 296

Smilie, of Pennsylvania, the ef
fort of, against the slave trade,
81

Smith, Gerrit, the antislavery ef
forts of, 185-186

Smith, James, an inventor, 296

Smith, James McCune, a Negro
physician in New York, 145;
letter of G. Smith to, 186

Smith, R. L., a business man, 292

Smith, Stephen, a lumber mer
chant, 136

Social relations of Negroes and
whites, 111, 116

Society for the Propagation of
the Gospel in Foreign Parts,
39

Soldiers, Negro, in the World

390

Index

War, 314-325; restriction of, in
the service, 314-315; assign
ment of, to labor divisions,
315-316; the abuse of, 315-316;
the record of, 325

Somerset decision, 38

Songhay, the empire, of 11-12

Soni Ali, 11

South, the situation in, after the
reaction, 84-85; affected by
slavery, 117-119; the last stand
of, 217-218; under martial law,
247 ; the exodus of Negroes
from, a calamity, 312-313; rad
ical reaction in, after the
World War, 339

South Carolina, the reopening of
the slave trade by, 80-81; se
cession of, 217 ; peonage in,
270

Southern matron, the appeal of
a, 351-352

Southern States, the adoption of
different plans by, 247-248

Spain, African slaves in, 18, 19

Spingarn, J. E., a friend of the
oppressed, 278

State, limitations on a, 119-120

Statistics on free Negroes, 124-
126; on the progress of, 138-
140, 281-283; on the Negro
Church, 284-285

Stebbins, Charles B., an aboli
tionist, 177

Stiles, Ezra, interest of, in free
dom, 54

Still, William, an agent of the
Underground Railroad, 143

Stone, Daniel, an opponent of
slavery, 215

Stone, Lucy, an abolitionist, 176

Storey, Moorfield, a friend of the
oppressed, 278

Stowe, Harriet Beecher, the writ
ings of, 152

Stringent measures in the South,
94-95

Study of the Negro, the, under
taken, 341-342

Sudan, the empires of, 7

Suffolk, fugitive slaves in, 226

Sugar industry and slavery, 84

Sumner, Charles, opinion of, on

the mutiny of the Creole slaves,
210; reconstruction ideas of,
242; interest of, in the f reed-
men, 245; on equality before
the law, 356-358

Suttle, Charles F., claimant of
Anthony Burns, 142

Talmadge, James, effort of, to

prevent slavery in Missouri,

118

Tanner, H. 0., a renowned paint
er, 299-300; paintings of, 299-

300; prizes of, 299-300
Tappan, Arthur, an abolitionist,

185; a reward offered for, 203
Tappan, Lewis, an abolitionist,

171, 185

Tariff and slavery, 121-122; op
position to the tariff, 122
Tarboro, Negro insurrection at,

92
Taxation during the Civil War,

237
Tennessee, failure of, to prohibit

the teaching of Negroes, 96
Tennessee, the reconstruction of,

241

Ten per cent governments, 240
Terrell, Frank J., an inventor,

294

Terrorism in the South, 269
Texas, slavery and, 200; sought

as a place for colonization,

165; the claims of, 213
Thirteenth Amendment, 238, 241
Thompson, A. V., a successful

Negro in Ohio, 139
Thompson, George, lecture of,

stopped by mob, 191
Thompson, the imprisonment of,

188
Tillman, Benjamin, a leader of

the poor whites, 330
Tilghman, Richard, the escape of

the slave of, with a white

woman, 46

Timbuctu, the city of, 10
Toleration and the Negro, 55
Topp, Henry, a successful Negro,

135
Torrey, C. T., imprisonment of,

188

Index

391

Town slaves, 114-115

Traders, slave, 19-20

Trades unions and the Negro,
273, 334-337

Trinidad, colonization in, 164-
165

Troops, Federal, in the South,
258; the withdrawal of, 258-
259

Troops, Negro, the use of, 233-
234; the status of, 234; the
record of, 234-236

Trotter, W. M., a leader opposed
to Booker. T. Washington s pol
icies, 277; the humiliation of,
277

Truth, Sojourner, an antislavery
lecturer, 179

Tubman, Harriett, the career of,
115; a promoter of the Under
ground Railroad, 143

Tucker, Alpheus, a Negro sur
geon, 234

Tupes, Colonel, praise of, for Ne
gro soldiers, 321-322

Turner, Benjamin, a member of
Congress, 249 ; education of,
251

Turner, Franklin, an advocate of
colonization, 166

Turner, Bishop H. M., interest of,
in col&nization, 268-269

Turner, Nat, insurrection of, 93-
94

Tuscaloosa County, the indict
ment of R. G. Williams by, 203

Tuskegee, the progress of, 288-
289

Tyler, Ralph, a war correspon
dent, 320

Uncle Tom s Cabin, 152, 217
Underground Railroad, 113-114,

142-143, 152
Union, the nature of, 122, 218-

219; the cause of, at first a

failure, 156

Union Humane Society, 156
Usher, Roland G., interest of, in

the study of the Negro, 342
Unskilled labor, 281
Untoward condition of the freed-

men, 260-261 ; economic situa
tion, 261-262
Unwilling South, the, 242-243

Vagrancy laws of the South, 244

Valladolid, Juan de, 19

Van Zandt, John, the fine of, 206

Van Buren, attitude of, in the
L Amistad case, 210

Vardaman, J. K., a leader of the
poor whites, 330

Varick, James, founder of the A.
M. E. Zion Church, 77-78

Varnum, General, enlistment of
Negroes by, 62-63

Vasa, Gustavus, 13

Vashon, George B., a lawyer, 148

Vermont, the fugitive in, 206

Vesey, Denmark, leader of an in
surrection, 93

Vicksburg, meeting at, to check
the exodus of 1879, 264

Villard, 0. G., grandson of Wil
liam Lloyd Garrison, 278; in
terest of, in the study of the
Negro, 342

Virginia and Kentucky Resolu
tions, the bearing of, on seces
sion, 219

Virginia, miscegenation in, 47-48

Wade, Benjamin F., the defiant

unionist, 219; attack of, on

slavery, 365-367
Wage system for the freedmen,

262
Wainrite, Anne, escape of, with

a negro woman, 46
Walker, Madame C. J., a business

woman, 292
Walker, David, appeal of, 93, 95 ;

connection of, with the Nat

Turner insurrection questioned,

Walker, John, suffering of, 188
Wall, 0. S. B., a Negro officer,

234
Walls, Josiah T., a member of

Congress, 249
Ward, Joseph, the opposition of,

to the enlistment of Negro

troops, 59

392

Index

Ward, S. R., a minister and ora
tor of power, 149, 151

Washington, Booker T., the pol
icy of, 274; the Atlanta ad
dress of, 274-275; ideas of, ac
cepted, 275; opposition to, 276;
the results of the work of, 279 ;
a writer, 301

Washington, Bushrod, a promot
er of colonization, 158

Washington, George, order of, to
stop the enlistment of Negro
troops, 59 ; revocation of the
order, 61 ; the enlistment of
Negroes by, 61 ; interest of, in
emancipation, 58

Washington, fugitive slaves in,
226; race riot in, 326-327; a
lynching, 327-328

Watrum, F. P., a missionary, 39

Wayman, Alexander W., a church
man, 148

W 7 ebb, William, an advocate of
colonization but not of African
deportation, 166

W T ebster, Delia, the imprison
ment of, 188

Webster, Daniel, the evasive po
sition of, 198-199; opinion of,
on the Creole slaves, 210

Webster, Samuel, interest of, in
freedom, 54

Weld, T. F., an antislavery stu
dent at Lane Seminary, 184;
an abolitionist, 177

Wesley, Charles H., interest of,
in the study of the Negro, 342

Wesley, John, opposition of, to
slavery, 56

W T est Indies, slaves carried to,
23; the lot of slaves in, 25, 26

Wheatley, Phyllis, a writer of
verse, 68, 301

Wheeler, John H., the escape of
the slave of, 205

Whipper, William, the agent of
the Underground Railroad, 143

White, George H., a member of
Congress, 249

White, J. T., honorable record
of, 253

Whitfield, James M., a writor of

verse, 148 ; an advocate of colo
nization, 166, 167

Whittier, John G., the antislav
ery writings of, 185

Whydahs, 24

Wilberforce, the antislavery ef
forts of, 165

Wilcox, Samuel T., a Negro gro
cer in, Cincinnati, 139

W T illiams, Francis, the scholar,
29-30

Williams, G. W., an historian,
301

Williams, John, intelligent slave
of, 42

Williams, Peter, a churchman,
148

Williams, Roger, protest of,
against slavery, 52

Williams, R. G., the indictment
of, in Alabama, 203

Williamsburg, Virginia, an in
surrection of slaves in, 36

Williamson, Passmore, efforts of,
to obtain the freedom of Jane
Johnson, 205

Willis, Joseph, organizer of Bap
tist churches in Mississippi, 77

Wilmot Proviso, the, 212

Wilson, Henry, reconstruction
ideas of, 242

Wilson, Hiram, a worker among
Canadian Negroes, 152

Winslow, Sydney W., the pur
chaser of Matzeliger s patent,
293

Wise, Henry A., the defense of
slavery by, 196-197

Woods, Granville T., an inventor,
296-297

Woods, Lyates, an inventor, 297

Woodson, C. G., founder of the
Association for the Study of
Negro Life and History, 341

Woolman, John, a Friend plead
ing the cause of the Negro, 56

Work, F. W., a musician, 298-
299

Work, J. W., a musician, 298

W^orld War, the Negro soldiers
in, 305-328

Wright, Elizur, an abolitionist,
171 : an instructor, 184

Index

393

Wright, Henry C., an abolition
ist, 177

Wright, Theodore S., letter of
Gerrit Smith to, 186

Wythe, George, an advocate of
freedom, 58

Yorktown, fugitive slaves in,
226

Young, Colonel Charles, the pro
scription of, 317-318

Young Men s Christian Associa
tion, the work of, among Ne
groes, 286-287

Young Women s Christian Asso
ciation, the work of, among
Negroes, 287

Zambezi, the, 2

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